


Dragon Age Origins; Advent of the Arcane Warrior

by Sanguinarian



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fantastic Racism, Interspecies Awkwardness, Multi, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:54:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 42,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26819878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanguinarian/pseuds/Sanguinarian
Summary: A skilled young mage, having not a day before become a fully fledged member of the circle, was forced to aid a friend to avoid a fate worse than death only to betrayed in the end, only to finds himself conscripted into the legendary Gray WardensCross posted on Fanfiction.net, this is the unsencored version
Kudos: 4





	1. Prologue

**Arcane Warrior**

**Prologue**

* * *

As soon as Duncan saw the crows, he knew.

From the ridge on which he stood, the carrion birds were barely visible, tiny black specks numbering well into the hundreds. They circled lazily, an enormous flock in the shape of a cyclone, narrowing to a singular point in the lush green forest. There was a village there, Duncan knew, nameless and unmapped, hidden from his view beneath the forest canopy. From the same village, heavy, black smoke rose in plumes, caught by the gentle wind and carried in dark streaks across a clear, midday sky. It was thick smoke, thick enough to tell Duncan that the fires still burned, and dark too, dark enough to tell him that the fires fed on more than wood.

He knew, but still he had to see for himself.

* * *

Journeying from the ridge to the village took little more than an hour. Duncan and his companions, Grey Wardens all, were accustomed to rugged terrain, but even here at its northern edge, the Korcari Wilds proved their reputation as unpassable. The terrain defied logic, seeming almost willfully hostile to travelers.

Deep ravines dropped from the forest floor into swamps warmed by sunlight only at high noon. Elsewhere, walls of rock jutted up from the ground, creating jagged stone barriers that could stretch for miles at a time. Whitewater rapids cut back and forth along the landscape's many contours, winding through ponds and bogs until they met larger rivers or fell away into the low, dark swamps. And where bogs and cliffs and valleys gave way, there was dense forest, thick with underbrush and shaded by trees that stretched up and up, until the trunks were lost in shadow.

That anyone could scratch out an existence in the Korcari Wilds struck Duncan as a minor miracle, and yet the notoriously hardy men and women of southern Ferelden not only lived in the Wilds but thrived, and had done so for centuries. They carved out settlements and even small townships, used the rivers for travel and trade, and clung with strident patriotism to their Ferelden customs and identity even as they lived well beyond their country's southern border.

Two days earlier, Duncan had sought provisions at a riverside village, where men and women asked eagerly for news from the north and refused payment from Duncan and his fellow Wardens.

"We don't go taking coin from heroes," a swarthy merchant had said, chuckling and shaking his head as though heroes often came through their village, and as though Duncan was one such hero, and as though he really ought to have known better.

Those villagers had guessed immediately that the Wardens were investigating rumors of darkspawn. No one in the village had seen any of the creatures, but of rumors there were plenty. The Chasind tribesmen who lived further south in the Wild had reported a skirmish with darkspawn raiders months earlier, an experience that left them so shaken they elected to move their tribe to new hunting grounds, far to the east. Not long after, tradesmen from nearby settlements had begun to report unearthly sounds in the night and hunters who never returned; more recently, settlements further south had simply gone silent, sending no traders for weeks.

The villagers brushed away these omens as the mundane perils of living in the Wilds, and noted with optimism that all the bad news came from deeper in the Wilds, where swamps stretched unbroken and fog covered everything, day and night, regardless of the season. Here at the northern edge of the Wilds, the fog hung close to the ground, usually no higher than a man's knees. At higher elevations, on the ridges and hills, it disappeared entirely on sunny days.

But the big merchant told Duncan that even here, in the north, sometimes the deeper fog would rise, and that was when they locked the village gates and bolted their doors. Creatures moved in that fog, the merchant said: witches or wildlings or werewolves, depending on who was telling the stories.

At dusk, after they left the village traveling south, that deep fog had risen, and Duncan had known something evil stirred within. Something worse than the monsters in he merchant's tales.

In the night, he felt the dark song begin to swell deep within his mind: the horrid, haunting, beautiful calling that was the gift and the curse of all Grey Wardens. The music infected his dreams, and when he woke this morning he was drenched in sweat. As they broke camp in the dawn light, Duncan could tell from their grim faces that each of his five companions had felt the calling as well, though for the newer Wardens it would have been less intense, and their grasp on its meaning less clear.

To Duncan, however, the meaning was unmistakable. Something terrible had happened in the night, or was still happening perhaps. Something that had brought many of the darkspawn up from the caves and recesses beneath the earth, out of the deep roads, and sated the creatures bloodlust. What exactly, and where, he couldn't be sure, so they continued south, pushing on to the next village, following the merchant's directions.

They spotted the crows at mid-afternoon, and as soon as Duncan saw the crows, he knew.

* * *

They found the first bodies hanging from low branches just outside the village. Six small children, some missing limbs or showing other wounds, but all of them likely alive when the nooses were fitted.

"Maker..."

The whisper – a prayer or curse Duncan couldn't tell – came from the youngest of the Wardens. The youth, Desmond, was from Orlais, the son of a wealthy merchant no less, and was only a few years into his service with the Order. It was possible he never seen the aftermath of a darkspawn raid.

Duncan held his silverite blade ready in one hand, but put his other on the young man's shoulder. It was the only comfort he could offer.

"There will be worse ahead," Duncan told him.

And there was.

* * *

The men and the older boys, and some of the women too, had chosen to fight. They made their stand just inside a small gate in the stockade that surrounded most of the village. However valiant, the defense was hopeless from the start. Darkspawn had simply clambered over the stockades and overwhelmed the desperate resistance. They had fought to the last, but even so it would been over in a matter of seconds.

The darkspawn left the defender's bodies where they fell, many still clutching weapons and tools. In the midst of the human carnage Duncan could see splashes of black blood along with red. Duncan knelt briefly, inspecting a longsword that lay beside the body of a large, well-muscled man, likely the last of the defenders to fall. The blade was darkened with ichor and chipped in several places.

At least a few of the darkspawn had been killed, likely by this very sword. But where the beasts' bodies should have lain there were only blood stains on bent grass and gouges in the dirt.

The darkspawn had dragged away their own fallen.

If this had been an ordinary raid, a random outburst of darkspawn violence, the creatures would have left their dead behind alongside the villagers. Removal of the bodies however was too sophisticated, too purposeful. This alone was evidence the massacre had been orchestrated by a higher intelligence. It could be the work of an emissary, a demon wearing the twisted skin of a darkspawn. Or it could be a sign of something worse yet.

Duncan looked over to his nearest companion, a bald dwarf with a weathered face half-covered by blocky, dark tattoos. The dwarf's name was Korith, and besides Duncan, he was among the most senior of the Wardens stationed in Ferelden. He could read the signs as well as Duncan, and though it was no comfort he offered his old friend a grim nod.

Behind them, Desmond had began to weep quietly, staring slack-jawed into the village square. Duncan turned to see that tears streaked the young man's face, falling from his cheeks and running down his breastplate.

There had been about a dozen houses inside the stockade, all of them large and some with a second story. Half had burnt to the ground, the embers still smoldering. In the tradition of Ferelden peasantry, each house would have held several generations of extended family.

"How many, you think?" Korith asked quietly.

"At least a hundred and twenty, maybe as many as a hundred and fifty," Duncan replied.

"Twenty here, or about that," Korith said, and then pointed at the village square. "And at least forty there."

Bodies had been dragged and piled in the square, then drenched in oil and put to torch. The oily smoke still rose into blue sky. All were dead before the fire started, Duncan guessed, as they were stacked too neatly. A small mercy. Others lay where they had been struck down, and Duncan suspected some perished in the burnt houses. Still others had been hacked to pieces, their heads mounted on pikes in a loose circle around the fire, their limbs scattered garishly or left on the remaining fences and window mantles.

"Another forty scattered around, maybe?" Duncan suggested.

"There'll be others strung up outside the stockade, I'd wager. More than just the kids we found. Could account for all of them, maybe?"

"I don't think so," Duncan said reluctantly. "Even if twice that number are hanging out there, there still aren't any women here. There are grandmothers, girls," he said, gesturing at individual bodies, "but no women."

"I saw two or three back at the gate," Korith said, but he was nodding. "Not enough."

They stood quietly, studying the carnage with practiced eyes, until audible sobs began to rack Desmond's body. He was on his knees now, his sword laid on the ground in front of him, rocking forward and back. He knelt before a fencepost, to which a little girl had been tied. Her head hung forward limply, her torso pinned to the post by thick arrows. A homemade doll lay on the ground before her, soaked with blood.

Not content to leave anything unsullied, the darkspawn had slit open the belly of the doll as well.

Duncan sheathed his sword and knelt beside the young man, silent as Desmond wept, the sun beating down on the back of his neck, a gentle breeze carrying stench of burning flesh.

Once, Duncan had felt the same revulsion Desmond felt now. Cried the same tears. Asked the same pointless questions. And when Duncan had first encountered this monstrous handiwork, he was already a veteran of the Order, having fought the creatures in a dozen skirmishes; and before the Order, he had lived a harder life than Desmond, and was better acquainted with the world's callous disregard for life. Even still, it had rocked Duncan to his core, the nightmares following him for months. So he was not without sympathy.

"Why?" Desmond asked at last, eyes still wet as he looked to Duncan beseechingly. "I knew they killed, but...why like this?"

Duncan drew in a long, measured breath before answering. "I don't know what drives them to such cruelty," he said honestly. "Perhaps the call of the Old Gods demands it, or perhaps it's simply their nature. We don't know."

Grief and horror began to drain from the young man's eyes, clouded over with a dark emptiness that Duncan had seen before. He gripped Desmond's shoulder suddenly and roughly.

"All we know - all we need to know - is that it they are evil, and that all other evil pales beside them. Do you understand?"

There was no response, and Desmond did not look directly at Duncan now, his eyes wandering over Duncan's shoulder, his gaze unfocused. He was sinking into shock, letting the horror choke him. This was something Duncan could not permit.

He shook the young man again, harder this time. "Do you understand now? This is why we take our vows."

This horror must be turned to a purpose. Indeed, coming face to face with the darkspawn's depravity was a tool in the molding of any Grey Warden. The horror must be turned to anger, to steeled resolve, to a truer understanding of the Order's purpose. "Look around you," Duncan insisted. "This is why we serve. This is what we sacrifice to prevent. Look!"

Reluctantly, Desmond focused again, slowly turned his head, eyes slipping over the bloody masterpiece of unchecked, deliberate cruelty.

Quieter now, Duncan asked again: "Do you understand?"

Desmond's eyes found Duncan's, and they held the answer.

"You do," Duncan said softly, and Desmond nodded.

* * *

The Chantry teaches that it was the hubris of men brought darkspawn into the world: the first of the darkspawn were said to have been idolatrous mages, cursed by the Maker for trying to overthrow heaven itself.

Like most Wardens, Duncan was religious and counted himself among the Chantry's faithful, but he found this particular teaching difficult to accept. The darkspawn were a swarm, a living, breathing embodiment of primal evil, and Duncan could not fathom how such a scourge could truly be just punishment for the heresy of a few, no matter how grave the trespass. On the other hand, it was hardly Duncan's place to question the Maker, and if the darkspawn were truly a punishment for all mankind, then Duncan supposed he had seen enough of human depravity to recognize that the sins of man might cry out for divine retribution. Besides, if the Order itself had found an alternate explanation for the darkspawn, he had never heard it.

Not that their origins mattered. Whether cast out of heaven by a vengeful God, or spit up from the depths of the earth by some whim of uncaring nature, it changed nothing now, and it had changed nothing a millennia ago, when the first darkspawn swarmed across the land, a Blight, unstoppable and relentless.

That First Blight lasted more than two hundred years, until it must have seemed that all the nations of Thedas would be consumed by the darkspawn. The dwarven kingdoms were the first to fall, destroyed almost entirely, driving the dwarves themselves to the brink of extinction. The Tevinter Imperium was reduced to a shell of its former glory. Countless other cultures were swallowed in the Blights, and perhaps whole races as well, their names lost to history. Few records remained from that time, now more than a millennia past, and neither the Chant of Light nor the Chantry's historians could offer more than the barest of details.

The Order of the Grey Wardens emerged at some point during that time, when hope must have been all but lost, founded by men and women from every race and every nation, all of them veterans of the endless war against the darkspawn. The first Wardens sacrificed everything to stem the tide of darkness, and prevailed.

Twelve centuries had passed since the First Blight, and the darkspawn rose three more times, and three more times the Grey Wardens beat them back. And after every Blight, Thedas healed, and the devastation faded into the pages of history, and the darkspawn retreated to the deep roads and the fringes of civilization, but many who once called the Wardens heroes had forgotten.

The last Blight, the Fourth, was now four hundred years past, long faded from the memories of most men. And still Wardens like Duncan and Korith and Desmond kept the lonely vigil, hunting the few darkspawn that emerged from the shadows, watching for the signs of another Blight, warning that one must come, upholding the vows of those who had come before.

* * *

"In War, Victory," Desmond whispered the first of the vows, his voice tremulous.

"In Peace, Vigilance." Duncan and Korith spoke the vows with him, and Desmond's voice grew in confidence.

"In Death, Sacrifice."

Then Desmond stood. Tears still streaked his face, but his mouth was set firmly and when he lifted his sword from the ground, he did so with a firm hand.

"I understand, Commander," he said. He crossed his forearms, so that his clenched fists touched the opposite shoulder, and gave a short bow – a Ferelden gesture of respect – and when he rose, his eyes were hard. "Thank you, ser."

Duncan shook his head, pleased but also saddened by the change in Desmond. "You owe me no thanks. Now go and see to the bodies."

Desmond stepped away and began to move through the village with the other Wardens, closing eyes and whispering the Chantry's Blessing of the Last Rites. The bodies would be moved to the pyre in the center of the village, blessed again, and then set alight, denying the crows their feast. Wardens could not afford sentiment, and in other circumstances Duncan would have left the fallen untouched, but his own work in the village was not yet finished, and there was no harm in allowing Desmond and the others the comfort of ritual respect.

The village had been built on the slope of a hill that rose from the tree line to what looked like the edge of a cliff. The remains of a single windmill smoldered near the edge, and Duncan could see shapes strewn on the ground there, probably more of the dead. He beckoned for Korith to follow, and began to walk toward the mill.

The music of the calling had been quieter today, a slow buzzing compared to last night's crescendo, but since arriving at the village, a few isolated, discordant notes had begun to stand out. Not all of the darkspawn were gone from the village.

"Two or three nearby, I think," Duncan said to Korith as they passed the last of the houses and the climb became steeper.

"Your guess is as good as mine. A lot less than a raiding party, anyway. Why leave some behind, though?"

"A lookout, maybe," Duncan suggested. "Maybe they knew we were coming."

"Now there's a cheerful thought," Korith muttered.

Although Grey Wardens' connection to the darkspawn through the song flowed both directions, most of the beasts seemed incapable of correctly interpreting the music. If the band that slaughtered the village were led by an emissary, however, or if Duncan's most dire suspicions proved out, then anything was possible.

They reached the crest of the hill, which did indeed give way to a cliff. The windmill sat right at the cliff's edge, and a sturdy wooden deck had been built out over empty space. A winch on the porch connected to a system of pulleys and buckets, which dropped down about thirty yards through the scaffolding. A wide river that had been partially dammed at the base of the cliff, and a ladder had been built as well, accessible through a trapdoor in the porch.

The bodies Duncan had seen from below had fallen roughly in a line, leading from the hill up to the base of the mill, and then onto the porch. It stood to reason that some of the villagers would try to escape this way. Given the trapdoor to the ladder remained propped open, some might even have gotten away in time.

Not all the bodies there belonged to villagers, however. Four men had fallen defending the ladder, but unlike the villagers at the gate, these men were soldiers. They wore helmets, heavy marching boots, and breastplates over chain mail. Round wooden shields, reinforced with hard steel, and bloodstained swords lay next to the bodies.

Duncan knelt beside the nearest soldier, whose upturned face had been ravaged by the crows, and rolled the body. The sigil of the Ferelden monarchy, a pair of stylized Mabari hounds over a golden crown was emblazoned on the back of the armor.

"King's men," Korith said, resting his axe on the wooden slats beside the trapdoor. "Pretty far south, aren't they?"

Patrols were indeed rare so far south of the border.

Standing, Duncan walked to the edge of the porch and looked over. Near the bottom of the ladder, the burnt husks of two boats were still tied to a small dock. Two more of the king's men were dead on the dock, and the bodies of several villagers bobbed in the water. No one had escaped, then.

And escape might never have been the goal, Duncan thought. In an evacuation, a soldier's duty would have been to make their stand at the gate while families fled, and these men were no cowards: they had fought hard to hold the ladder, not died in a scramble to be the first down its rungs. If anything, Duncan guessed, the villagers at the gate had fought to buy time for the patrol to reach the river and carry a warning north.

Preoccupied as he was, Duncan might have missed the sound of metal boots approaching from behind. The discordant notes had grown sharper, however, and Duncan was on alert. Three darkspawn, moving slowly around the side of the mill, treading lightly on the grass.

He glanced sidelong at Korith, and saw the dwarf was aware too, his big hands tightening on the pommel of his axe.

When the darkspawn had closed to within a few yards, the creatures broke into a sprint, apparently believing they had surprised the Wardens.

Duncan rolled to his left, and as he came to his feet drew two blades: one a long silverite dagger carried in his left hand, the other his trusty blade. The dagger he raised to a high guard, and at the same moment, he lashed out at the nearest creature with his sword.

It was one of the taller breed of darkspawn, hurlocks, and shared the height, build and posture of a tall man. Like the rest of its kind, the creature's skin was dark grey, dry, and looked as though it had been pulled tight across a leering skull. its eyes were a dull milky white, and one would would think them blind were it not for the singleminded way they persued any and all before them with the drive to kill or defile, and its drawn lipless mouth kept its cracked, blunt teeth on constant display.

As Duncan's sword flew toward its throat, the beast's eyes registered something like surprise. It tried too late to slow its charge: the sword pierced its neck clean through, and Duncan ripped the blade sideways, arcing black blood across the grass as the hurlock tripped forward and then smashed to the ground dead.

Nearby, Korith had spun in place as Duncan rolled, his axe held out and spinning with him in a defensive arc that the second hurlock barely avoided. They squared off, the hurlock holding a crude mace in high guard, Korith with his axe in both hands now.

There was no time for Duncan to watch. The third hurlock bore down at a full sprint, a jagged blade held above its head, already beginning to bring it down for a strike.

Duncan sidestepped to the left and parried, using the force of the blow as it struck his sword to twist after the passing hurlock. He swung with the dagger in his left arm.

The swing was too low, glancing harmlessly away, but the impact caused the hurlock to stumble when it should have turned. Duncan kicked out, landing a solid blow to the creature's hip and knocking it to the ground.

Duncan spared a glance at Korith, and saw the dwarf's axe take the head off the second darkspawn, and then ran at the hurlock he had kicked. The beast was trying to stand, but too slowly. Duncan kicked it again, catching it in the stomach this time and launching it off the edge of the cliff. It shrieked as it fell, before smashing onto the river rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

"So, turns out there were three," Korith remarked conversationally. He stepped up next to Duncan but was facing down the hill toward the other Wardens who were sprinting to their aid. "All done," Korith called out, waving them off. "We didn't leave any for you!"

Duncan barely heard. His focus was on the horizon.

He had not looked far enough when he first reached the crest of the hill. He had not seen the pale grey smoke rising in distance, or perhaps he had mistaken it for a cloud. It rose so thick that it did almost look like clouds, and there was so much that once he recognized it as smoke, for a heartbeat he thought there must be a forest fire.

"Korith," he said, and even to himself he sounded shaken.

The dwarf turned and then cursed.

The smoke was not from a forest fire, nor was there any forest.

On the other side of the river, a bog stretched for miles in every direction, broken only occasionally by a small rise or a stand of trees. Hills rose in the distance, and at the base of the hills many hundreds of campfires burned. At this distance, they were only pinpricks of light, but the pinpricks were not the warm orange of natural fire – instead they were bright and dark at once, glinting purple and green and even black, like lightening in the dead of night.

The wind rose, and as he breathed it in it seemed to him that the wind carried with it the calling, the song stronger than Duncan had ever felt, eclipsing last night's crescendo. He was nauseated, the music sinking deep into his chest and stomach, making his eyes water, and he could almost taste the corruption and rot at its heart.

Around the fires, darkspawn moved in great companies. Duncan could not make out individual forms, nor the emblems on the great banners that flew above them, but he didn't need to see details to know what lay on the horizon.

Beside him, the other Wardens had reached the cliff's edge. One by one, Duncan heard them gasp as if in pain as they too were assaulted by the calling.

"How many?" Desmond asked, his voice hoarse.

"Thousands" Korith said. "Maybe more."

For some time they stood in silence, transfixed by the sight and the song, a row of six Grey Wardens bearing witness to a horde, the likes of which had not been seen in four centuries.

A passage from the Chant of Light rose in Duncan's mind: You have brought sin to Heaven, and doom upon all the world.

Whether it was the holy words or a lull in the wind, Duncan was jerked from his trance.

"We need to go," he said, turning away. "Now."

His companions turned as well, and together they ran.

They ran down the hill and through the village, leaving the bodies where they lay, funeral rites unfinished.

They ran through the gate, skipping over the bodies of its defenders, and as he passed the men and women who gave their lives in a vain attempt to save those they loved, he was reminded of the vows he had repeated earlier with Desmond.

In death, sacrifice.

* * *

If one were to travel along the shores of Lake Calenhad, one would inevitably catch sight of the imposing tower fortress called Kinloch Hold, a relic of the once mighty Tevinter Imperium. If the traveler were to look more closely, they would notice the remnants of a massive bridge that was never fully rebuilt, several small docks lining the shores, all closely watched by armored sentinels.

Most travelers didn't notice any of this, however. They turned their heads down and away, pulled their cloaks tighter about themselves, and fixed their thoughts on more hospitable places like Denerim or Amaranthine. Places not touched by the curse of magic.

Within the tower, quiet usually reigns. Aside from the occasional explosion, there is only the soft murmur of conversation between mages, or 'robes', and the clinking of the soldiers stationed at regular intervals along the curved halls constantly on watch for anything out of the ordinary. At night things became even more silent, as the inhabitants settle down to dream, and the guards' watch even more closely in this deceptively peaceful time.

This is the home of the Circle of Magi of Ferelden. Some called it a haven, others a prison. It was the only place in the kingdom where mages can legally live and practice their Maker given powers of magic, however even then they could only do so under the watchful scrutiny of the Chantry's Templar order. It is the duty of these feared religious warriors to watch for and slay apostates, maleficarum, and abominations.

Apprentice mages, almost always taken in youth, must learn to control their powers in preparation for the ultimate test.

The Harrowing.

"Wake up!"

Alim Surana's purple eyes snapped open at being woken so violently, and he was on the verge of casting a spell out of sheer instinct before his mind caught up with him. The templar standing over him would probably "mistake" the action as hostile and take action but after his sight cleared he recognized the knight as Cullen, a templar with whom Alim had formed a tentative friendship.

"Rise apprentice Surana, you are to come with me," Cullen said briefly and quietly. Alim slowly got up from his bunk, noting his friend's oddly formal tone and judged the situation as too dire fore idle conversation and pulled his unadorned blue apprentice robes on as he looked around the barracks that apprentices were stuffed into to see if anyone else was being woken. He was the only one up and about, and in the dead of night that could only mean one thing.

_'It is time'_ he thought, pushing his waist-length white hair behind his ears and styling it into an Orlesian braid, a style he was well-practiced at as he had done it every morning since arriving at the tower some fourteen years ago, before turning back to the waiting templar, who turned and left the room.

They started making their way up through the tower, through the libraries that held so much knowledge on all things (Chantry approved things, at least), past the laboratories used in the creation of various magical potions and the study of various creatures both worldly and otherworldly. They moved up into the Templar quarters, which apprentices were forbidden from entering, before finally reaching the Harrowing chamber at the very top of the tower.

There were three more templars and a mage already waiting in the massive, empty room. Though old and wizened the mage still radiated a sense of power, and with good reason, for he was First Enchanter Irving, widely considered one of the most talented mages Thedas had seen in many generations. Alim's grandfather figure and mentor stood straight backed and tall with a posture that defied his advanced age, his forest green eyes set within his wrinkled face, with long neatly styled grey hair and a matching beard, wearing the first enchanter's signature black and gold robes and carrying his silverite dragon headed staff.

A short distance away, flanked by his helmeted underlings, stood Knight Commander Greagoir, the final authority of the Ferelden Circle. Though no youngling himself, he still had a severe aura about him as he stood ramrod straight. He wore the shining silverite armor restricted to knight commanders, and carried an enchanted silverite arming sword on his belt with a kite shield emblazoned with Chantry heraldry hooked on his back.

Cullen led the young elf over to the gathered assemblage.

Alim moved to stand beside Irving as his guide abandoned him to stand behind Greagoir, and the old Templar stepped forward and took a deep breath.

"Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him," Greagoir quoted from the Chant of Light. "Thus spoke the Prophet Andraste as she cast down the Tevinter Imperium, ruled by mages who had brought the world to the edge of ruin." He began to pace dramatically, his words carrying more weight behind them here in the lyrium lined Harrowing chamber than they otherwise would in more ordinary circumstances.

"Your magic is a gift, but it's also a curse, for demons of the Fade are drawn to you and seek to use you as a gateway into this world." He stopped and glared at Alim, who nodded to indicate he was listening. The elven mage resisted the urge to roll his eyes, as he knew all of this already, perhaps better than even the knight commander himself did.

While it was true that templars spent their lives studying the Andrastian scriptures out of pure piety, mages however spent their lives having these very same scriptures almost literally beaten into their heads and would then spend the rest of their days being relentlessly reminded of them like a condemned prisoner being read a list of their sins by a particularly persistent jailer.

"This is why the Harrowing exists." Irving continued, stepping forward and putting a sympathetic hand on Alim's shoulder. "The ritual sends you into the Fade, and there you will face a demon, armed with only your will."

_'So it's sink or swim at its finest then. If amage cannot resist a demon's corruption when they are at their worst then they will not be permitted to live.'_

"I am ready."

"Know this, apprentice, should you fail, we Templars will perform our duty. You will die." Greagoir warned gravely causing the templars behind him, Cullen and a woman with blond hair peeking out underneath her helmet, to shift uncomfortably.

Perhaps attempting to blunt this stark statement of intention, Irving spoke up in a more hushed and hurried tone. "The Harrowing is a secret through necessity, child. Every mage must go through this trial by fire, as we succeeded, so shall you. Keep your wits about you, and remember the Fade is a realm of dreams, the spirits may rule it, but your own will is real." Alim nodded, he had heard all of this many times before, but the comforting tone in Irving's voice calmed his nerves somewhat.

"The apprentice must go through this test _alone_ , First Enchanter." Greagoir cut in, sounding annoyed.

_'What, did something happen?'_ Alim thought, as the Knight Commander and First Enchanter were long-time friends, true their friendship was a bit strained from something that happened decades in the past that neither could quite get over, but overall they got on pretty well. Irving shook his head sadly before gesturing Alim forward.

"You are ready."

Alim nodded and cleared his mind of anything that was not strictly necessary before approaching the small font at the center of the room. A soft blue glow emanated from the mercurial liquid, and he sensed the power radiating from the refined lyrium within. Though potentially addictive and dangerous if overused, lyrium was the physical essence of magic as found in nature, and Alim took a moment to just bask in the flow. Finally, he let his magic flow into his hand and gently dipped it into the lyrium. The liquid stuck to his hand and started crawling up his arm. He panicked, lyrium had a tendancy to sink into flesh like thick water, so with a burst of magic, he banished the liquid off of his hand and back into the font.

Suddenly, he was engulfed in a flash of light as the carefully prepared lyrium coupled with the runes lining the chamber pushed his mind out of his body, his physical body sent reeling backwards while his mind was sent into the Fade.

The last thing his physical eyes saw was Irving moving with unnatural speed to catchhis body before his head could crack on the floor as the templars surrounded the elf's sleeping body and waited to see what would happen next.


	2. Dream Walker

**Arcane Warrior**

**Chapter 1**

**Dream walker**

* * *

Alim shook his head and blinked his eyes rapidly, the bright flash caused by the lyrium having left him disoriented. Once his awareness returned to him, he slowly opened his eyes to see he now stood atop a nebulous floating piece of land that resembled a plateau... Except for the fact that the ground seemed to shift and change from minute to minute.

The very air here was distorted, filled with energy and warping his view of everything. At least he thought it was air, he could still breath... although considering the fact that he was here as a dreamer and this was not his physical body, his 'bosy' must have simply been breathing out of habit.

Only doing so because he thought he needed to.

Massive grotesque statues dotted the area and the ground flowed randomly with grass, dirt, and stone. Glancing into the distance, Alim saw a series of floating islands in a reddish-brown sky as well as the one and constant sight in the Fade no matter who came here: the Black City, once home to the maker and now a grim reminder of humanity's hubris.

Alim snorted in derision. Whenever a mage visited the fade, whether they were actually human or not, the Templars would always remind them in no uncertain terms about how it was their brethren who was responsible for having corrupted the Golden City and caused the maker to turn his back on them all as well as having cursed Thedas with the Blight.

The elf shook his head and dragged himself back to his current situation, there was little point in dwelling on the past now that he was being put through a situation such as the Harrowing after all. He had a demon to find if he wanted to avoid being yet another unmarked grave at the shores of Lake Calenhad. He started walking in the direction he saw what could loosely be described as a path, and sweeping his gaze out over the stretch of land he spotted a little ball of of energy flitting around the base of a statue that looked rather like it was made of half melted wax.

 _'A wisp'_ he thought. These small collections of magic were the last remnants of a deceased spirit; they were pure reflections of the defining emotion of the spirit they were in 'life'. Of course a spirit could not truly die as it was not alive, but rather it would reform elsewhere in the fade in a location where the defining emotion that made them was strong.

A "good" wisp, the remnants on a benevolent spirit, would often try to guide or protect dreamers. It would cling to them, floating harmlessly overhead, whispering helpful imnformation into the dreamer's mind and shouting in warning when it sensed danger nearby. However a wisp that came from a demon or malevolent spirit would generally attack on sight.

No one was quite certain whether they were unable to discern friend from foe or if they could and simply didn't care.

Alim prepared a spell as he approached the lazily floating bundle of energy, it was almost impossible to tell what type a wisp was from a distance and he didn't care to waste any spells on something like this when he had who knew what kind of demon or demons waiting for him at the end of this trial.

A wordless screech of rage echoed through the area as the wisp noticed him. Without hesitation, he launched his crescent shaped blast of energy before countering the wisp's lightning ball with a shield. Lacking any thoughts of self-preservation, the rage wisp died as Alim's spell tore through it.

Pushing on, Alim passed through an out of place canyon, noting with some mild amusement the upside down trees and broken marble pillars, which brought to mind something he had once read about the environment of the fade only being a poor imitation of the physical world.

The principle was somewhat akin to having a grimoir written in ancient elven being translated into Tevene and then back into ancient elven. It would be the same book, but so much would have been lost to translation that it would be almost completely unrecognizable even so.

A few more of the wisps wisps fell without much resistance before Alim found something interesting. A mouse… small and brown with the odd white streak and staring up at him with wide black eyes. Or perhaps this was another dreamer in disguise, a spirit taking on a form it had gleaned from his mind or even the demon he had come here to face doing the same and attempting to lull him into complacency by taking on a semblance he would in most circumstances know as harmless.

"Someone else thrown to the wolves, as fresh and unprepared as ever." Alim glanced down, idly wondering how such a human sounding voice came out of that off-shaped mouth. Well if the demon, if that's indeed what it was, hoped to use this benign looking form to escape his notice only to strike when his back was turned it had failed.

"It isn't right that they do this, the templars. Not to you, me, anyone."

"No, it isn't right at all. But I will succeed, right or not." Alim stated with confidence, crouching down to get a better look, discreetly tracing an Arcane Shield behind his back should the thing prove hostile. The mouse pulled himself out of his hole and said with a scoff. "You say that now. So have many others before you. Look at me, look at what can happen." Alim narrowed his eyes at the pathetic creature's rather futile attempts to break his spirit, if that was indeed what it was attempting.

The mouse sighed "it's always the same. But it's not your fault, you're in the same boat that I was, aren't you?" the mouse asked rhetorically as it started to glow with a yellow light, its form flowing upwards. Alim used the noise of its transformation to disguise him snapping his finges and casting the Arcane Shield he had prepared immediately, but the mouse, now a human in form, ignored the magical wall between them and continued sardonically "allow me to welcome you to the Fade. You can call me, well, Mouse."

"You were an apprentice then?" Alim asked causing Mouse to nod solemnly.

He kept up the shield separating them, wary of the so-called apprentice who happened to be wearing the robes of a senior enchanter, but willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. One could change their appearance on a whim here, it was entirely possible that he simply changed his robes to make himself seem more intimidating.

"It's fuzzy, that time before. They wake you up in the middle of the night and drag you to the Harrowing chamber, and then..." Mouse paused, making Alim suspicious, "the templars kill you if you take too long, you see" he hissed with renewed rage. "They figure you failed, and don't want something getting out." The creature started pacing angrily, his voice dropped to a frustrated mutter, "that's what they did to me I think, I have no body to reclaim.

"And you don't have much time before you end up the same." He finished, and Alim arched an eyebrow. He seemed to be in a hurry, but there was no concept of time here, it was truly impossible to tell how long it had been since he first arrived here.

Alim shrugged and crossed his arms before his chest "I already knew they were out to get us, so I'm not surprised. I am sorry about what happened to you, for what it's worth... Mouse." Mouse sighed again.

"Don't waste time with that talk, you don't want to end up like-" he gestured towards himself in a broad sweeping gesture "-this." He looked around fore a moment before focusing back on Alim and continuing. "There's a creature here, contained, just for an apprentice like you. You have to face the creature, a demon, and resist it if you can.

"That's your way out. Or your opponent's, if the templars wouldn't kill you. A test for you, a tease for the creatures of the fade." Mouse once again finished his long winded speech with a long drawl, drawing out his last word.

Alim crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow "anything can die. I doubt it's as simple as that." He said confidently, having engaged many of his instructors and fellow apprentices in magic duels, and even the few templars willing to engage a mage in melee combat.

It was no boast to admit that he had won most of the magic duels he had taken part in, especially as he grew older and his knowledge of magic increased. But only against his fellow apprentices however, against his instructors there were only a few he was certain that he could defeat with any degree of reliability, and many more that he could potentialy best with a great deal of effort.

But against Irving? Never even once had he managed to claim a victory over his old master.

The templars however? Upon Irving agreeing to instruct him in the ways of the Knight Enchanter, there had been a few Templars who had taken to instructing him in the way of the sword. Even though he had eventually gotten to the point where he could claim to being fairly good at it, he always had the sneaking suspicion that they were witholding certain things from him.

Certain techniques or instructions that could lead to him managing to defeat a more experienced Templar in single combat.

But even as it was he was fairly certain that he could take most of the younger and less seasoned knights, although the results of a challange against the likes of Gregoir were rather the same as a challenge against Irving.

Albeit with cosiderably with more bruises.

However that was all neither here nor there in his current situation, as he was fairly certain about his chances here where willpower mattered more than strength, or spell knowledge or even raw power, to a somewhat lesser extent, and therefore a mage like him had every advantage.

"You would be a fool to just attack everything you see," Mouse boomed disdainfully "what you face is not only powerful but cunning as well." Alim sighed, he didn't expect this test to be easy, but...

Alim moved around Mouse and continued down the path, hearing the supposed former apprentice transform back into his smaller and less noticable form behind him. A few seconds later, Alim realized that there was a patter of feet behind him. Turning, he saw that Mouse was following him.

Alim kept the shield separating them active but invisible. He was not willing to trust anything here, even after a few 'well meaning' words of advise. Or perhaps especially so, as some of the more intelligent and cunning demons would in theory try to manipulate him by getting on his good side. From what he had read about such underhanded tactics, the hesitation brought about by a sudden betrayal by one you thought a friend was just enough time a demon, if sufficiently cunning, needed to get what it wanted.

Mouse preemptively answered the question that was written on the elf's face "I think I'll follow you for a while. My time was long ago, but you might have a chance. I would like to help in any way I can, such as telling you a spirit is currently residing on a hill just beyond this canyon." Alim raised his eyebrow and thanked Mouse again, still suspicious of his helpfulness before the two moved on, Alim destroying another wisp without much effort.

Proceeding cautiously, Mouse was as much help as he thought he would be when he encountered several minor, hostile spirits. His whiskers stood on end and he was gone in a flash into the nearest hole, shadow, or any other cover he could find. It was no more than he expected, and he found himself missing Jowan. He was always nearby when he needed him, and he wouldn't have run off like a coward when the glowing balls of light attacked.

The small victories over the wisps gave him an uneasy sense of self confidence. Although painful experience had taught him that too much confidence could be as much of a curse as anything else, it carried him through several more encounters of the same type.

He wound his way through the blurred, ever shifting landscape, not bothering to look for Mouse any time one of the wisps appeared. To be fair to the creature this was Alim's yest and not his, but if he was always so worthless in a fight it was hardly a wonder he was stuck here without a body to return to.

But perhaps that was not fair of him. Alim had always had a disdain for weaklings and cowards. As a child he had dreamed of being a knight, having grown up on his grandfather's stories of his time in service under General Loghain in the war with Orlais and under the strict physical training regimen of

lhis harsh taskmaster of an aunt. Under the two of them he gained a sort of knightly bearing, his every action one of chivalry and honor.

Even after his magic was discovered and he was carted off to the tower, the honor and valor his family had taught him had not gone away as he had always tried to keep their teachings in mind no matter what. In time he would only cement this attitude in himself as he picked up every book about knighthood he could over his years at the tower, no matter what the other mages said of his admittedly rather strange fixation given his life's path.

The one thing Mouse did seem to be good at though was his fits of warning squeaks whenever a hostile spirit came near. Not that the elven mage didn't detect them first, but if anything the rodent would be useful as a warning alarm if that ever changed.

In spite of his urgent warnings about taking too long and the templars lurking with a sword ready to fall and severing his spine in turn, he didn't rush.

The probability of getting killed here was simply too high to allow himself to get careless and rush through this trial. If he didn't manage to keep his skin whole in the dream world, it wasn't going to matter what the templars did. Although he didn't know for certain, he assumed that should he die in the dream realm, his body would subsequently waste away to death at the top of the tower, having no soul to inhabit it.

Well... Either that or he would live on as a Tranquil. He wasn't quite certain.

"There is another spirit this way. It never seemed equal to its name to me," Mouse's mutterings behind him went largely ignored. This was the first time he had spoken up about any of the spirits they came across, instantly drawing his curiosity.

The pair left the canyon and made their way up the hill, Mouse falling behind as Alim beheld the new spirit. It was armored from head to toe and carried an arming sword and kite shield with a lion head emblazoned on the face strapped to its arm, it was surrounded by piles and racks of every weapon imaginable with the center of the clearing taken up by what looked to be a double helix of swords rising from the ground straight upward towards the sky.

 **"Another mortal thrown into the flames and left to burn, I see"** the spirit announced in a booming voice, turning to look at him. **"Your mages have devised a cowardly test. Better you should be pitted against each other to prove your mettle, than to be sent unarmed against a demon."**

"I agree with you spirit, but I didn't have much choice in the matter you see." Alim said, choosing to ignore the fact that it was the templars, who's armor the spirit before him bore, who had probably come up with the Harrowing in the first place. He had read that spirits appeared before mortals they chose to take a form that the mortal in question most closely associated with the specific trait they embodied.

 **"Indeed, the choice, and the fault, lies with the mages who sent you here."** Valor said, and Alim nodded. Even though it had been both mages and templars who had sent him here, he quickly moved past it to focus on the here and now.

"What kind of spirit are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

 **"I am Valor, a warrior spirit."** Valor responded and Alim hummed in thought, so this meant that he most closely associated the Templars with valor in his mind despite everything.

Interesting.

**"My purpose is to seek perfection, creating the ultimate weapon for the pursuit of valor."**

"Hmm, do you think it is possible for me to borrow a staff to fight the demon with? I would return it to you afterwords of course" Alim asked. Valor folded his arms thoughtfully.

**"I will give you one… if you agree to duel me. Valor will test your mettle as it should be tested."**

"Very well Valor, I humbly accept your challenge." Alim agreed, ignoring Mouse's warning that he didn't have much time, not trusting the opinions of such a coward.

For whatever reason Mouse seemed to believe that it was only the templars watching him, and not the First Enchanter who's words held much wait among the knights of the Chantry who posed a threat to him should he fail his trial.

**"We shall continue until I am satisfied that you are of sufficient strength to face your demon. If you are unable to meet my standards, I shall slay you. Is this acceptable?"**

"Yes" Alim said concisely, preparing his magic. Valor drew his sword with a flourish, looking impressed that Alim had agreed so quickly.

 **"Very well! Fight with Valor!"** He yelled, crouching into a stance, readying himself to fight.

Alim immediately conjured a sword made entirely of spirit energy in his left hand, a Knight Enchanter's go-to offensive spell. Under normal circumstances he would've required a medium to summon his spirit blade. A specially crafted hilt that all Knight Enchanters are taught how to create when they begin study of this path. Here in the fade however he faced no such restriction, and indeed he could attempt to face his demon even without a staff if he wished, but he would prefer not to go unarmed in case the demon proved to much for what he could do without his power amplified by a staff.

He probably could have willed one into existence, but he had never attempted it before and would rather borrow one than attempt something so complex in the midst of such an important trial.

He could see the approval and excitement in Valor's eyes at the sight of his blade, and Alim rushed forward, swinging his sword in swift swings he had all but perfected in his duels against Cullen.

With his sword in his left hand, and right hand (which would normally be wielding a staff) free to throw magic spells, Knight Enchanters like himself were a force to be reckoned with, something that became evident in his dual with the spirit of Valor. He parried the spirit's sword and blew the shield away with an Arcane Bolt and struck Valor's breastplate with his palm, following up the seemingly useless martial art attack with a wave of spirit energy that sent Valor back a few feet.

 **"Ah yes! I have faced your kind before, magic knight. They have always proved themselves worthy and formidable adversaries, and you do not disappoint in that regard. Although you still have a long way to go yet. Your sword work and your spell work both have many areas to improve on before you can provide me with the challenge I seek"** Valor said, complimenting his abilities but noting his flaws with constructive criticism.

"I thank you Valor, I shall act on your advice and endeavor to be greater in the future." Alim answered, his tone even and confidant. "You are a most worthy adversary yourself, may we meet again in the future."

 **"A fine attitude to have, warrior."** Valor stated as he rushed forward again. Alim answered his thrust with a parry, and as the sword came in again from his right he conjured an Arcane Shield and struck with his own spirit sword, but Valor blocked it with his shield, only for the spirit energy to lose its cohesion and become a blast that exploded out at the spirit warrior.

Taken by surprise at the sudden turn, he could do nothing but be repulsed and knocked into the air, regaining his bearings he gracefully flipped in midair and landed near one of the weapon racks.

 **"Enough! Your strength is sufficient to the task, the staff is yours."** Valor said, sheathing his weapons and reaching into the nearest pile to grab a beautiful staff, which he tossed to Alim who gratefully took it and leaned on it, winded from the battle. **"May you find success in all your accomplishments Mortal."** The spirit gave a salute to Alim before turning away.

"Thank you Valor." Alim said with a respectful bow.

"That was incredible Alim!" Mouse cried as they met at the bottom of the hill. "You're the first apprentice I've seen who was able to hit Valor hard enough to impress him, and I've never seen anything like that energy blade before!"

"I thought you didn't remember anything from before." Alim said as he idly destroyed a spirit wolf that was rushing towards him.

"I… don't." Mouse said slowly "But I'm sure that I would recall something as incredible as that. Apprentices usually don't have that kind of control."

"I've always had a close affinity with blades and the spirit magic." Alim said, and then changed the subject. "So, Mouse... Why did you take the form you did?"

"Well, after the templars killed me, I was left all alone in the Fade." Mouse said bitterly. "I was scared, and so I hid from everything. Eventually, I took the form of a mouse, so that I could hide more effectively. Finally, the mouse in me swamped the human, and I became Mouse. That's the way that the Fade works."

"Interesting" Alim said thoughtfully. The two continued on in silence for a while, passing through the strange and undulating forest as Alim defeated any hostile beings that approached.

He had to limit his spell use so he kept to simply using his blade and only sent small bursts of spirit energy from his staff. He couldn't be sure, but should he show any of his more powerful spells here, it was probable that the demon chasing him would bear witness and adapt to his strengths, using its knowledge of his combat abilities to gain an advantage.

Suddenly Mouse stopped short once again, chosing to speak up a second time to warn him about a denizen of the fade, though this one would prove to be somewhat less benevolent.

"There is a demon nearby. Not the one hunting you, but still… we should be careful." Alim nodded and slowly moved around a completely arbitrary cliff face into a small clearing. At first, nothing stuck out, but then he realized that the odd pile of thorns off to one side was breathing.

With a subtle hand gesture, he stretched and expanded the barrier separating Mouse from him around himself until it protected him from attacks on all sides.

It looked like a bear, if one accepted that bears had rotting reddish skin with the odd patch of fur here and there with spikes sticking out. The creature was also massive, easily taller at its shoulders than Alim himself. Its steady breathing indicated that it was asleep.

"It's a Sloth demon. Let us sneak by quietly," Mouse whispered and he agreed, sloth was relatively high on the demon hierarchy, the two slowly started to pass the demon.

If this was not the demon he would need to face for his trial, then challenging it would be unwise.

 **"So, you are the mortal being hunted?"** a slovenly voice rumbled through the clearing as two small, bloodshot eyes opened. Alim halted immediately as Mouse scampered behind him. **"I might have been inclined to devour you myself, but that would take… too much effort.** "

"Wonderful, he isn't interested in us. Let's get moving before he changes his mind" Mouse hissed, but Alim was struck with a crazy idea.

"Actually, I wouldn't mind speaking with you for a moment."

 **"Hmm. I don't particularly want to talk, but stopping you would require even more effort."** Sloth murmured, his eyes switching from Mouse to Alim. **"Speak, then, I may answer."**

"Do you know why I'm here?" Alim asked, and the demon slowly nodded. "If you could offer any help, I would be very grateful."

 **"You have a very nice staff, mortal. What could you possibly need from me?"** the demon yawned, his eyes drooping. **"If that is all, go on and fight your demon. Be… valorous."**

"He looks powerful." Mouse said quietly, transforming back to his human form. "It's possible that he could teach you to… be like him."

 **"Like me? No."** Sloth rumbled, sounding mildly amused. **"Mortals are far to attached to their forms to learn to change."** His eyes switched to Mouse **"You, on the other hand, have already abandoned your mortal body years ago. I could teach you."**

"I wouldn't make a very good bear. How would I hide?"

"Hiding doesn't solve anything, Mouse" Alim said. "We have to face the world if we are to change it."

"Who said I wanted to change the world?" Mouse hissed furiously. "I have seen more in this Maker forsaken place than you could possibly imagine!" He shouted at the mage hopeful, but backed up, slightly intimidated at the composed look on the elf's face and took a deep breath, then slowly continued "but, through all that, I haven't done anything. I have existed, but not lived. I guess your right, actually. Perhaps it is time to change. I'll try to be a bear." Mouse moved forward to stand beside Alim.

 **"That's nice"** the demon huffed. **"But I never said that I would actually do anything."**

"Wha… I knew he wouldn't help us," Mouse groaned in frustration.

"You can't suggest something and then decide that you won't do it!" Alim snarled.

 **"I can't?"** Sloth asked in amusement. **"You have so much to learn about the Fade, little mortal."**

"Mouse is willing to learn, teach him." Alim demanded with a look in his eyes that visibly frightened the Sloth Demon, and not so visibly frightened his ally of circumstance.

" **Hmm, it seems I have become mildly interested in this whole affair. Let us make a deal, little mortal. If you can answer my three riddles, I will teach your friend. If you cannot, I will devour you both. What say you?"**

"Very well, Sloth. I am rather fond of riddle games." The demon slowly rose to his feet, his eyes fixed avidly on Alim.

 **"My first riddle, is this: I have seas with no water, coasts with without sand. Towns with no people, mountains without land. What am I?"** Alim stared at Sloth for a few moments, and Mouse started backing up very slowly. Grabbing his companion's arm, Alim answered: "You are a map."

**"Hmm, correct. Let's move on. My second riddle is this: I am seldom touched, but often held. If you have wit, you'll use me well. What am I?"**

Alim's thoughts drifted back to a distant memory, and he answered with a sad smile, "tongue."

 **"Yes, your witty tongue."** Sloth grumbled. **"One more try: Often will I spin a tale, never will I charge a fee. I'll amuse you an entire eve. But alas, you won't remember me. What am I?"**

"A dream." Alim answered promptly. "Very clever, I could think of three answers to that one. But with that specific wording, only one was the case" the Sloth demon preened under the praise, then sighed.

**"You are correct. Rather apropos here in the Fade, no? But you've won my challenge and proven yourself an amusing distraction. Now, I shall teach your friend. To begin, you must…"**

* * *

"Like this? Am I a bear? It feels, heavy" Mouse wondered aloud as he shuffled around in his new body. Black furred, about two thirds of Alim's height, it had taken a mere fifteen minutes for him to grasp. Fifteen minutes that had felt like an eternity to Alim, who remembered Mouse's dire warnings. How long did he have until Greagoir lost patience and decided to have him killed? Would Irving try to intervene, or just stand aside, reasoning that he had other apprentices to throw into the flames?

He could only hope that his grandfather figure would give him as long as necessary. That and silently reinforce the shield surrounding him into a full circle now.

 **"Hmm, close enough."** Sloth said, laying down and turning back to Alim. **"Go then and defeat your demon. It's that way"** gesturing one of the paths out of the clearing **"Now, leave me be. I grow weary of your prattling."**

"Thank you, Ser Sloth." Alim said, walking off, followed by the now large Mouse. The two walked in silence, easily defeating a group of spirit wolves.

"Should I start calling you Bear now?" Alim jested.

"You're never going to let that go, are you?" Mouse grumbled, his voice slightly deeper through the bear form. "Are you sure you want to face the demon now? I could point you to another spirit…"

"No, I'm pretty sure I can do this." Alim said. "A few quick questions, though. What is the demon like?"

"It's a rage demon, lowest on the hierarchy but still powerful." Mouse said, his bear-face scrunched up. "It manifests in an "arena" just over that way, and has a fiery form. It also generally has a few wisps in attendance. Did I mention that it was strong?" He said, his voice wavering a bit on the last part

"Yes, Mouse, but so are we." Alim patted his 'friend' reassuringly. He figured that Mouse or Bear might be some demon in disguise, trying to get on his good side. He figured that the best thing to do here was to do the same himself, hopefully his own betrayal against it if he was indeed a demon should make it hesitate long enough for him to kill it.

"But..." He started, but Alim cut him off with a look, "I have a plan" Alim whispered as the two entered the arena.

In the middle, cracks appeared in the ground, fire emanating from them. Lava leaked from the cracks before it formed into ahand before it grabbed at the ground the ground. Another joined it, which then pulled the full body of the demon out of the ground. About Alim's height, it was indeed made entirely of lava, and had no facial structure except for two hate-filled glowing eyes.

 **"And so it comes to me at last"** Rage's voice echoed. **"Soon I shall see the land of the living with your eyes, creature. You will be mine, body and soul."** It said with a sweeping hand gesture.

"Even if you manage to defeat me demon, Templars would still kill you" Alim reasoned calmly, his tone cold but even as his magic flaring up at his command. The demon emanated an aura of condescending superiority, and his own aura became noticeably more potent, challenging the vile aura of the demon.

 **"They are welcome to try!"** Then, surprisingly, he turned to Mouse, who had transformed and moved to stand beside Alim. **"So, this creature is your offering, Mouse, as per the terms our arrangement."** Alim turned in surprise towards his companion, who was covering his face. _'So my suspicions were true, at least partially.'_ If the bear turned on him, there was no way that he could defeat the traitor as well as the demon and wisps that were now moving to surround him.

Well, he could if he were careful about it and chose his spells and tactics well, but it would no doubt make for a much more difficult a task.

"We don't have an arrangement! Not anymore!" Mouse cried, his eyes blazing as he raised his head. While the demon's face could not show any emotion, his next words more than made up for it.

 **"So after all the wonderful meals we shared,"** he said in a voice that didn't even try to hide his simmering fury, **"now suddenly the mouse is changing the rules."**

 _'Shared...'_ "I'm not a mouse anymore." Mouse said proudly. "And soon I won't have to hide. I don't need to bargain with you."

 **"We shall see"** the demon hissed, and then everything started happening at once.

"Distract it!" Alim cried, immediately blasting one wisp before turning to engage the ones behind him, his now visible spherical magic barrier rippling as his spell passed through it. Mouse complied, shifting into his bear form and charging Rage, who responded by engulfing him with a jet of fire.

The five wisps Alim faced might have been a threat, but made the mistake of clumping a little to closely. One virulent walking bomb spell eliminated the three instantly, and then Alim dispersed his sword and conjured a whip of arcane energy to take down another, he then moved his body to the side to evade their blasts if energy as he struck them down one by one with the whip. The lesser spirits delt with, he turned to help Mouse, who simply could not get close enough to Rage to attack.

"Pull back, Mouse, you've done your part." Alim shouted, and the bear gratefully complied, rolling to put out some of his flaming fur. The demon turned to face Alim instead.

**"Foolish creature, I am a Demon of Wrath. Those pests were just a distraction, surrender and I will make your death quick and painful!"**

Alim simply scoffed in response and summoned his spirit blade once again.

Saying nothing in response to the demon's taunts, Alim raised his staff and cast a spirit spell, the crystal tip of the staff tracing a pattern in the air before the same pattern beneath the drmon's... feet, a bluish white glyph appeared there and paralized the demon.

Acting quickly before the glyph faded and its effects wore off, he poured energy into his blade and swung it at the demon's eyes and again at its chest, crescent shaped arcs of spirit energy leaving the tip of his blade and cutting into the demon. He did not know where a rage demon's weaknesses might lie, as the chantry forbade any study into demonology.

Even knowledge that might lead to fighting against them more effectively was forbidden for fear that mages would use this knowledge and learn to summon them. Nor did he know any ice magic, which would undoubtedly make this fight easier, what with its body coposed of lava.

The demon charged Alim, unable to use its powers through the haze of pain. Alim gripped his staff and slammed the blunt end onto the ground, causing a burst of energy to expel in all directions and knock the demon back before Alim backed off and cast two glyphs in quick succession, one of paralysis and one of repulsion right on top of it.

The magic power of a glyph derives from the purity of its shape. When two glyphs overlap and their lines become confused, particularly when the glyph's effects are directly opposed as with Glyph of Paralysis and Glyph of Repulsion, the magic has no choice but to dissipate instantly and explosively, instantly paralysing all those nearby.

Not only would this paralysis last far longer, it was much more powerful. Now, even the lava that made up the demon was unmoving.

Alim calmly approached the slowly hardening lava monster, placing the tip of his blade between the demon's unmoving eyes. "Goodbye, Rage. You were an utterly uninteresting foe." Alim taunted as he stabbed it forward and sending a rush of energy into the blade, disrupting its cohesion and causing it to explode releasing the contained spirit energy into the domon's fiery body. The demon rlikely would have convulsed in pain as the energy foreign energy tore through it before exploding into death.

"You did it!" Mouse cheered, as he transformed back to human form. "I was worried there, but I should have known an apprentice of your potential would have a surprise up their sleeve!"

"I noticed that the demon mentioned other "meals" before. Who were those unfortunate apprentices you deemed unworthy to live... Mouse?" Alim asked quietly, glaring at the cowardly creature with eyes that simmered with suspicion and hate. He had not put away his staff or dispell the barrier, only strengthened it further until it was crackling with energy.

"What? They were not as promising as you. They wouldn't have survived anyways. I… don't even remember their names. I don't even remember my own name. It's the Fade, and the Templars killing me, like they were going to with you." Mouse said hurriedly, backing up a little.

 _'Like an animal'_ Alim thought in disgust, _'or worse'_ but let it go for the moment. "So what is it that you want from me then, turncoat?"

"You've completed your test. Someday, you will be a master enchanter without equal. And there is hope in that for someone as small and… forgotten as me."

 _'There is no such thing as a master enchanter'_ Alim thought to himself, as the hierarchy only consisted of six tiers; those tiers being apprentice, mage, enchanter, junior enchanter, senior enchanter, first enchanter and grand enchanter.

"…What are you getting at?" Alim asked slowly. Mouse's face had adopted a calculating look.

"There may be a way for me to get a foothold outside. You just have to want to… let me in." Mouse said hopefully, but there was something… else.

Alim's blood chilled, _'so it was exactly as I had thought'_. "The other demon wasn't my real test, was it?" he asked quietly, suddenly figuring out why Mouse was not wearing apprentice robes, but Senior Enchanter garments. He did not change his appearance to make himself seem more intimidating, undoubtedly the denizens of the fade would not be able to distinguish the differences between the color and design of mage robes, no he wore the robes of a high ranked mage because it had gleaned the information from his mind and wore them proudly...

It couldn't be.

"What? What else here could harm an apprentice of your potential?" Mouse asked, trying to sound offended. Alim simply glared at him, bringing his staff up again. Finally, Mouse smirked. "Oh, you are a smart one." His expression then changed to an ugly leer.

"Smart enough to see through you, demon" Alim said, backing away and summoning another spirit sword.

 **"Simple killing is a warrior job."** Mouse said, his voice deepening threateningly. **"The real dangers of the Fade are preconceptions, careless trust... Pride."** His body glowed again, and then rose upwards. Alim then understood. Mouse was a Pride Demon, the most dangerous creatures in the Fade. With a flash, the powerful monster vanished. **"Keep your wits about you, mage,"** its voice lingered as the world went white.

**"True tests, never end."**


	3. Bound in Blood and Magic part 1, Love

**Arcane Warrior**

**Chapter 2**

**Blound in Blood and Magic**

**Part 1**

**Love**

* * *

Jowan groaned and rolled over in his bed as he dragged himself back into the waking world. It took him a moment to gain his bearings everything seemed to blend together shortly awaking, as if the mage's mind registered everithing around him as a sort of fog. Eventually though, the fog passed and he was able to realize what had woke him; the soft sounds of armor clinking and quiet murmurs from the templar guards who had entered into the apprentice barracks.

Keeping his eyes closed and doing his best to pretend to be asleep still to avoid a confrentation, he did his best to listen in as they spoke quietly among themselves and tried to figure out why they were here. The guards weren't exactly kind to their mage prisoners, some of them taking a liking to waking them from sleep just to annoy them, knowing they could do nothing in return lest they be labeled as an abomination or a blood mage or other such rot.

"One of the best Harrowings I've ever seen, saw through that last trap almost instantly." Jowan almost jerked up at those words.

The Harrowing!

One of his fellows had gone through their Harrowing, the last step required for an apprentice to become a full mage of the Circle! "Perhaps the Knight Commander was wrong about this one, he doesn't really seem all that unstable to me."

"Yeah, and that display of swordsmanship in there. I had heard tell around the tower that this one was good, but those  
Knight Enchanters really are something else. We ought to bring him up to the training area, have a few practice sessions."

 _'Swordsmanship, Knight Enchanter? He did it, Alim really did it!'_ Jowan thought fiercely, almost jumping clean out of his bunk in happiness at the news of his friend's success. He was the only one they could be referring to after all, Alim wasn't the only apprentice in this generation being instructed in the path of the Knight Enchanter, but he was the best.

Most of the other apprentices and instructors simply owed that to First Enchanter Irving's prowess as his teacher. Jowan though, as one of the the only people in their age group who actually knew Alim beyond 'that effeminate looking elf with the strange fixation on knighthood', he firmly believed it was due to Irving's teaching prowess and his friend's own natural talent.

Jowan internally celebrated, this meant that he wouldn't have to say goodbye to another friend! It was always so painful, to wake one day and see yet another apprentice who has mysteriously dissapeared. Or worse, to roam the hallways one day and see a former apprentice bearing a sunburst branded upon their forehead.

But that hadn't happened, not this time.

The two templars lay Alim down on his bed before leaving the barracks as quietly as their heavy plate armor would allow. Once the crowded room was silent once more, save for the snoring and murmuring of sleeping apprentices of course, Jowan opened his eyes fully and leaned over to try and get a better look at Alim. He didn't look that bad, and the Templar said that he had done rather well. So the harrowing wan't any kind of physical test or battle he guessed judging from the elf's unmarred visage, pristine robes and immaculate braid.

Squinting from the light light beginning to stream through the stained glass window adjacent to his bunk Jowan rose from his bed and started to get ready for the day, it would not be long before the wake up call would go off. If Alim was at all like the previous survivors, he wouldn't be awake for a few hours yet anyway.

* * *

**'True tests, never end'**

Alim jerked up in his bed, panting. The final warning of the pride demon that had called itself Mouse echoed tauntingly in his mind. He looked around, expecting the demon to be coming for him. But no, he was back in the relatively albeit somewhat claustraphobic apprentice barracks, with its dozens of bunk beds all crammed in together with no regards to privacy or any form of gender segregation.

He closed his eyes and fell back to the bed, groaning both in tiredness and at the state of disquiet his mind had been left in.

 _'I don't get it'_ Alim thought. _'I was just asleep, so why do I feel so tired? I'm used to being fully conscuious when I go to sleep so why is this different? And then there's what that demon said, I get the feeling that I'll be meeting him again.'_ His eyes narrowed _'I don't look forward to it. Pride demons are extremely powerful and cunning.'_

"Are you all right? Say something, please…" He heard a voice off to the side somewhere say, the noise knocking him out of his inner monologue.

Alim opened his eyes to see that Jowan's face was right in front of his own as he sat up in his bunk. "Jowan?" Alim asks, he had recognized the voice, but somehow just speaking his fellow apprentice's name out loud felt like it would ground him in reality.

"I'm glad you're all right. The templars carried you in this morning, I didn't even realize you'd been gone all night. I've heard about apprentices who never come back from Harrowings. Is it really that dangerous? What was it like?" Jowan asked almost too quickly for him to catch considering he was still slightly disoriented from the experience.

"It was... harrowing" he smirked slightly at his pun when Jowan rolled his eyes in irritation. "Is that why they don't tell us what it's about?" he asked eagerly, "I know I'm not supposed to ask, but just a little hint, then I'll stop asking, I promise." His voice had taken on that disarming pleading tone which he only used when he was truly desperate, taking Alim off his guard.

 _'Why is Jowan pushing the issue so desperately?'_ he wondered, as despite the fact that Jowan was by no means the most talented mage in Thedas, or even the most powerful, but he was by no means the weakest or least talented. He had above average talent in Entropy magic, and a somewhat lesser amount of talent in Primal spells.

"We're friends Jowan. But please don't ask me this, you know I can't tell you." He said to his friend guiltily, as much as it pained him to keep secrets from his friend he was a loyal mage of the Circle, and giving away knowledge that was forbidden to apprentices wasn't something he was going to do.

"Huh, so much for friendship, I'll leave you alone then." Jowan said in response, obviously trying to guilt him into losing his composure and spilling the secret. Alim said nothing as he slid out of his bed and went through his morning exercises. "And now you get to move to the nice mage quarters upstairs. I'm stuck here and I don't know when they'll call me for my Harrowing." Jowan whined, moving out of Alim's way. "Don't worry so much about it, I'm sure they'll call you for yours soon enough." Alim finished his routine and shook his limbs, feeling nice and limber.

"Easy for you to say. I've been here longer than you have… sometimes I think they just don't want to test me." Jowan pouted at Alim who looked up at him, eyebrow quirked. "What are you talking about Jowan? Why wouldn't you be tested?" "The Tranquil never go through a Harrowing. You do the Harrowing, the Rite of Tranquility… or you die. That's what happens." Jowan explained as though Alim didn't already know this, but what bothered him was the look in his eyes, it was almost as if he didn't see the Harrowing as an option.

"What does this have to do with you?" Alim asked warily, standing in the doorway of the apprentice barracks. "If… if they don't call apprentices to the Harrowing, it probably means… tranquility. You've seen Tranquil around the tower. Like Owain, who runs the stockroom? He's so cold. No, not even cold. There's just… nothing in him. It's like he's dead, but still walking. His voice, his eyes are lifeless…" Jowan shivered, the Tranquil unnerved everyone at times.

"Owain volunteered though, you know that. He felt he was too weak for the Harrowing and... It was his choice Jowan, there was nothing anyone could have done."

"Yes I know but... I don't know how they do it exactly, but you're cut off from the Fade. It takes away your magic abilities, along with your dreams," Jowan hesitated as he reached the worst part, "and emotions." Alim rolled his eyes at Jowan's textbook definition of the tranquil, those were Senior Enchanter Ivan's exact words from their first class with him.

"You speak as though I don't already know all of this, Jowan." Alim frowned, he didn't like to think about the Tranquil, even while he may not let it show but they did actually unnerve him at times. "Apprentices can ask to be made tranquil if they fear the Harrowing. But the Circle also forces Tranquility on those they feel are weak. And sometimes they force it on Apprentices they think might be too… dangerous as mages." Alim raised his eyebrow at his friend at all these obvious statements that even the slowest mage would know, it was almost as if...

"I shouldn't waste your time with this. I was supposed to tell you to see Irving as soon as you woke up." Jowan swiftly changed the topic of conversation as he remembered his orders from earlier and Alim relented, still suspicious but not wanting not to think further along his previous train of thought.

"Master Irving? What for?" Alim asks, it wasn't often that Irving would ask to see him outside of a appointed time, normally though Alim just showed up. "He didn't tell me. About the Harrowing, I'd guess, but you never know with Irving. You'd better not keep him waiting, we can speak later." Jowan walked away in a hurry, and again Alim had to bury his suspicions.

Like the previous night, the elven mage wandered his way up through the tower. Of course now he made his way alone, and the previously dark halls were bright and colorful, bathed in the light of the large, stained glass windows of the Circle tower. As he walked though, he felt... off.

Somehow, even though he had walked these halls for years, it seemed different now that he was a full-fledged mage rather than an apprentice. The halls seemed... he didn't quite know how to describe the feeling, but it felt like an old friend he'd be leaving behind... although that didn't didnt seem to be an accurat summation either as he knew he'd still be coming down here often enough as a teacher.

He entered the spacious library, listening with amusement to William trying and failing to control a magical fire. The younger mage was not bad at magic, just lacking in self-confidence. His nervousness allowing for his spells to escape his control and get the better of him. It was amusing to watch his telekinesis training backfire on him and... at least until he'd have to get him down from the chandeliers and explain to the templars why they shouldn't kill the poor boy.

For most mages one of the four schools of magic came relatively easily to them while the other three were a constant struggle. Alim himself was exceptionally proficient in two schools. Not necessarily a rarity among apprentices, but not quite uncommon either.

Primal was the magic of the elements. Energy was summoned from the fade and bent into fire, ice, stone and lightning. The best known of the schools; it was widely considered to be the easiest. While it was true that almost any mage could do it, there were not many who could use it with finesse and skill since it was the hardest to truly control.

Creation on the other hand had more peaceful applications and required an extremely high level of control. Abilities like healing stemmed from this school, as well as defensive glyphs and strengthening and energizing auras. Masters of Creation were also the most likely to be allowed outside the tower to be used by cities and armies.

Spirit; the magic pulled directly from the Fade was the least common branch, and thus was sometimes mistaken as being forbidden by the ignorant. It was the most subtle of the schools, it didn't require that the energy be transformed into an element or augment the body, rather it taught the user to affect the world with the energy itself, such as using telekinesis to lift objects as directed by the mind.

Entropy was the nastiest legal branch of magic, designed for the sole purpose of debilitation. It could cause bouts of terrible fear to take hold of the mind, put targets to sleep, or a combination of the two previous spells to cause the target to suffer terrible nightmares, it could create auras to absorb the life-force or mana from the air around them or any living being who gets caught up in the aura.

Alim himself had a rather large talent in two of these schools, outside of his Knight Enchanter training of course. He specialized in spirit and creation magic, the two schools most necessary in learning his more unique discipline. He knew he had no natural talent in primal or entropy magic and thus his instructors had steered him away from them entirely with a sole focus on the remaining two.

He had always wanted to devote some time to studying the other two, but he had never had the time in the past to see if he could overcome his lack of talent with sheer effort as some had in the past. Perhaps now that he was a mage and not bound... well, not as bound by the strict instructions of his superiors in the Circle, he finally could.

A little further into the library, some of the youngest apprentices were getting a lecture from a loyalist mage about the templars favorite mantra.

_'Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him.'_

This passage of the Chant of Light was the whole reason for the existence of the various Circles in Thedas. It was what gave the Chantry the right to run the lives of mages all over the world. Alim found it incredibly ironic that the Chantry's own doctrine was what they saw as making them legal overlords over them all, rather like the way that the laws made solely by the human nobility were used to oppress the elves. He sometimes wondered if the Chantry ever stopped to consider the irony that in an effort to escape slavery under the magisters, the mage lords of Tevinter, they in turn enslaved the mages of all of Thedas.

 _'Probably, it's their whole bloody plan right?'_ he thought bitterly in a rare moment of utter pessimism.

Alim knew why the laws had come to pass, of coarse.

In ancient times, the Tevinter Imperium had ruled almost all of Thedas. It had been run, in turn, by the Magisters, powerful blood mages who's cruelty had caused a great deal of suffering. That much was known fact, but the Chantry accused them of much more. It claimed that the Magisterium's arrogance was so great, that they had forced their way physically into the Fade, and sought to take the throne of the Maker.

They were rebuffed, "twisted and cursed by their own corruption" and had become the monstrous darkspawn. To further damn their memories, the Magisters assault on the Golden City is said to have caused the Maker to turn his back on the world, leading to the current sorry state of affairs.

Once, a few weeks after Alim had first arrived at the Tower, he had asked why the current generation of mages were still being punished for the crimes committed by those who had died long ago. The answer the class had been given was, of coarse, that their being taken from their families and exiled to the Tower was not actually a punishment, but a way to defend them from those out in the world who feared their power.

He had gone on to ask why the apostates, those that managed to live outside of the Circle peacefully were hunted. If they were capable of making it in the outside world without hurting anyone, then why should they be bothered? The loyalist, the same one who was lecturing these children before him, had answered by talking about maleficarum, and how they were a threat to everything and every one and cursed by the Maker. In so doing, she had conveniently ignored the bit about how the apostates in question were not hurting anyone.

But this realization only actually came to him in hindsight, that loyalist's words had him entirely convinced, at the time, that apostates and maleficarum were one and the same.

Alim, wrapped up in these thoughts, only realized that he was nearing Irving's office when he heard the First Enchanter and Knight Commander arguing about something through the open door. Glancing in, he saw them, as well as a man he didn't know.

About fifty years old, give or take, the newcomer had dark salt and pepper hair slicked back into short tail with a wild looking but neatly trimmed beard. He had dark skin denoting a Rivaini descent. His armor, unlike Greagoir's almost ceremonial suit, looked like it had seen a great deal of action, but wasn't of any uniform he recognized. It strongly resembled the Rivaini knight uniform he had seen in a history book.

He wore silverite sword strapped to his back, almost unassuming in its design but flawless in its construction. The sword rested in a specialized scabbard which left a large portion of the blade's flat side visible, and given it's location he could only assume that the special scabbard made for easy drawing from the back.

From the large sash around his waist emerged a smaller sash, almost a ribbon, which in turn was tied around the scabbard of a long dagger. In form it matched the sword on his back, and it was easy to see that they were meant to be used together in one of the many sword and dagger styles he had read about.

But the thing that caught Alim's attention the most, cliche as it was, were his eyes. They were a bright amber, but somehow seemed darker, strained. As though they had seen even more of the world than his age would indicate. Despite this, however, they seemed calm, at peace. The man glanced up from the argument and noticed Alim, but did not immediately comment on it.

"Many have already gone to Ostagar, Wynne, Uldred, and most of the senior mages. We've committed enough of our own to this war effort " Greagoir was saying furiously. _'War? Who are we at war against that would require so many mages to be let out of the tower?'_ Alim puzzled to himself, as even one senior enchanter was worth almost a dozen regular foot soldiers. The circumstances here must be dire indeed.

"Your own?" Irving retaliated in wry amusement as he crossed his arms "since when have you felt such kinship with the mages, Greagoir? I think it good that we are occasionally actually allowed to use our Maker given powers."

"How dare you suggest-" Greagoir started dangerously, before being interrupted by the unknown man, who had perhaps sensed that the argument was about to dissolve into an actual fight.

Needless to say, a fight between the two strongest individuals in the tower was not the most welcome of developments.

"Gentlemen, please." He had a rich voice, with a commanding, no-nonsense tone. Surprisingly, he was actually able to get the quarrelers' attention, something that caused Alim's opinion of him to go up a few notches. "Irving, someone is here to see you," he continued. Irving turned to Alim, having just realized he was there.

Irving chuckled softly, honestly surprised that he was still able to get so caught up within his disagreements with Graegoir that he could lose focus of all else.

"You sent for me, First Enchanter?" Alim asked, stepping farther into the room.

"Ah, if it isn't our newest brother in the Circle. Come in, young Alim," Irving said warmly, all traces of his argument with Greagoir fading from his face at the sight of his apprentice. The knight stepped forward to stand beside Irving, still studying Alim intensely.

"This is?" he asked, "yes, this is he" Irving confirmed. Alim wondered what Irving had told this man about him. Nothing bad, hopefully. Greagoir's eyes narrowed, despite having proved his worth he was still distrustful of the young elf.

"Well, Irving, you're obviously busy. We will continue this discussion later." Greagoir said, striding past them toward the door. Alim stepped out of the way, meeting the Knight Commander's eyes for a moment. Greagoir gave him a look, warning him to tread lightly, before continuing on his way.

"Of course." Irving answered, either not noticing the byplay or, more likely, dismissing it as irrelevant. "Well, where was I? Oh, yes. This is Duncan, leader of the Grey Wardens."

"A Grey Warden, here?" Alim said, his eyebrows shooting up. The Grey Wardens were a widely respected group of warriors, who's duty was to fight the darkspawn. Little was known about them other than this, but they were almost universally trusted even in Ferelden, where until twenty-some years ago, they had been exiled.

"Grey Wardens go wherever duty sends them." Duncan said seriously.

"You've heard about the darkspawn threat rising in the south, haven't you?" Irving asked. Alim nodded, having heard some rumors about a large incursion in the Korcari Wilds, which was the southernmost reach of Ferelden, just north of the uncharted lands, rumored to be home to hedge witches. "Duncan here has come to recruit mages for the Kings army at Ostagar."

He straitened his back at that, he would gladly go to war if he was summoned. He was a patriot after all, and the aequitarian beliefs were deeply ingrained in him after so long as Master Irving's apprentice.

"It is essential that we drive the hoard back in the south." Duncan said. "If we can not, then Ferelden may face another Blight." His purple eyes widened slightly at that and he instantly went silent.

Each of the past Blights had lasted decades, the exception being the first which had lasted almost two centuries. Each time it happened, tens to hundreds of thousands of people were killed.

Men, women, children... humans, elves, dwarves, or qunari, the darkspawn did not discriminate, they hated all of them equally.

"Duncan" Irving chided gently "Your worrying the poor boy with all this talk of darkspawn and Blights. He just passed his greatest challenge, today is a happy day for him." Alim wasn't comforted by Irving's words, but he appreciated the intent.

"These are troubled times, my friend." Duncan said quietly.

"We should seize moments of levity, especially in troubled times." Irving responded equally softly, before turning back to Alim. "The Harrowing is behind you. Your phylactery was sent to Denerim. You are now officially a mage within the Circle of Magi."

"Thank you, First Enchanter." Alim said, bowing.

"I'm sorry," Duncan interjected, "but what is this phylactery?"

"Blood is taken from all apprentices when they first come to the tower, and is preserved in special vials." Irving started, trying to shut Alim out of the conversation, but the younger man simply wasn't content with just sitting on the sidelines during such an important and grim topic.

"Should a mage ever leave the tower" Alim continued, "the templars are able to use the blood to find them." It sounded awfully like blood magic to him, but with all the other borderline hypocritical things the templars did, what was one more to add to the list?

"We have few choices" Irving said warning him to be quiet, and Alim took the hint and kept quiet. "The gift of magic is looked upon with suspicion and fear. We must prove that we are strong enough to handle our powers responsibly." He turned back to Alim, smiling. "You have done this. I present you with your robes, your staff, and a ring identifying you as a full member of the Circle," he said, handing the aforementioned items to Alim. "Wear them proudly, for you have earned them."

"Thank you, First Enchanter" he said with a smile filled with pride. Pride that he had to thereafter push down into the recesses of his mind. He was still far too shaken up by the Pride Demon's last message to him to allow himself to be overcome by any emotion, let alone pride.

He took his new acquisitions from Irving's outstretched hands. The exquisite folded blue and gold robes with many pockets hidden in their folds for potion bottles and other items he draped over his left arm to change into later, the gleaming lyrium-infused silver ring with the beautifully engraved dragon on the face he slipped onto the middle finger of his left hand, and the steel acolyte's staff he carried in his right hand to use as a walking stick as all mages did.

"Please, take the time to rest, or study, whatever you wish to do. The day is yours." Alim nodded, bowed slightly to Duncan, and turned towards the door. He would probably start by gathering his few belongings from his chest in the apprentice barracks and bringing them up to his new room in the the mages quarters.

"If our business is concluded, I would like to return to my quarters for the moment" Duncan said behind him.

"Oh and Alim," Irving called, and Alim turned back around. "Would you be kind enough to escort Duncan back to his quarters? I'm certain he will appreciate a little company."

"Of course, First Enchanter" Alim answered. It would be nice to talk to someone from outside the tower for a while. "And where are you staying, Ser Duncan?"

"On the other side of the tower on this floor," Duncan said as he fell into step beside Alim. "And you may simply address me as Duncan, I am no knight."

"On the contrary ser, you were able to prevent the First Enchanter and the Knight Commander's argument from escalating as well as stop the argument itself. I honestly never thought I'd see the day where anyone besides Senior Enchanter Wynne could boast that particular accomplishment" Alim said with a chuckle, only partially joking.

Duncan nodded with a small smile. He had dealt with those two often enough in the past to know that there was a great deal of tension in their dealings, despite there being a mutual respect underneath. He had met Wynne as well, and knew firsthand that despite her mild mannered and wise exterior, she was a very stern and... frightening individual.

"What's happening outside the tower, if you don't mind me asking?" he asked, as curious about the outside world as would be expected of a newly harrowed mage, if not more so.

"Ah… I don't imagine you leave very often, do you?" There was no pity for him in his voice, which he'd already guessed would only vex him.

"We are permitted to walk the grounds," he muttered, blowing a sigh through his lips as his eyes misted over, wistful over imaginary landscapes and great cities and forests and grasslands which he'd only ever been allowed to read about.

"And thus a good view of the other side of the lake?" Duncan did not mock him, but his matter of fact question baited his attention sharply back.

There were those, like Alistair, who anyone could read by spending a few minutes with them. Daveth's easy, broad sense of mischief but ultimate loyalty to whoever earned it and Ser Jory's pensive obligation to duty but his naive arrogance from always getting whatever he wanted handed to him were unfurled scrolls.

The mage in front of him seemed to be lacking in self confidence, but kept his cards closer to his chest. Perhaps this was a consequence of his upbringing here in the tower.

He might not see it in himself, but if he was put into the group of recruits he'd just mentally named, he had a notion he'd be the one to lead them; mage or no, elf or no.

These were things Duncan did not mention, however. He'd not yet obtained the permission he'd come to the Circle to get. "It must feel rather isolated, all the way out here with a lake in between you and the rest of the world" he continued conversationally. "I, however, am not a good source of news I fear. I am rather preoccupied with the darkspawn incursion." As he'd thought it might, that tantalized the lad with more questions.

Information about his Order and mysterious enemies of legend were more interesting than the tower, and seemed more pressing at the same time. Irving had wrangled the conversation out of their hands earlier, insisting it be turned to more upbeat things. Pleasant or not, Alim wondered who had a better clutch on reality, his mentor, or the stranger?

On one hand, he knew Irving to be a gentle, kind, balanced man who did his best through passive stubbornness to help his charges. On the other, he didn't know Duncan, but in knowing the ways of the First Enchanter, he might not be as canny to dangers in the outside world as maybe he should. "Can you tell me more about the Grey Wardens and the darkspawn?" He wanted to make the decision of danger for himself, if he could, and that meant asking.

"Certainly." Irving was correct about the young man it seemed, and he'd already planted a seed in him which he was sure would grow. "I am intimately familiar with these subjects after all."

Drumming his fingers absently against the staff in his right hand, he tried to piece together what little he could remember of the past Blights. Considering the last one happened some four centuries or more ago, there wasn't much coming to his mental call. "About that horde in the Korcari Wilds," he recalled the name. "Have there been many darkspawn attacks?"

His tone had become deadly serious as he watched him begin give up wistful dreams for real threats. "If they are not stopped, they will strike north into the valley. We Grey Wardens believe there is an archdemon leading the horde."

The new term Duncan introduced didn't slip by and Alim pounced on it, hungry for more. "Archdemon?" He'd never heard of such a creature in all his studies and contact with the Fade.

"Darkspawn do attack the surface in ragtag bands, but archdemons are capable of rallying the darkspawn, turning them into an unstoppable force. A horde of darkspawn … a veritable army. It is dire news indeed. I fear this is what we will have to face." Duncan said, making Alim shiver.

"Is it truly a demon?" He'd read many different bestiaries and dossiers of the creatures of Thedas and the spirits of the fade, and considering his recent Harrowing, he was that much more curious. "Or some sort of of powerful Abomination? Or is that just what people call it?" The term 'demon' literally meant one of the more malevolent denizens of the Fade, but as Sloth had recently reminded, it was only a word. When people didn't understand something, it could become a convenient tag used to identify some other strange creature.

He decided to explain his question further when he saw Duncan quirk his eyebrow. "You said it has the power to pull the darkspawn together in a horde, but if it's a Fade creature, how does it have so much effect in the material world? Did it possess something?"

"I do not know the answers to all of those questions," Duncan told her evenly, almost beginning to lose patience with him... almost.

"We believe the archdemon is one of the old gods of Tevinter, which the darkspawn continually tunnel beneath ground to find." It was a process he'd personally witnessed while even younger than this young elf, when he was almost newly made a Warden at 17. The Architect hadn't been heard of since, but Maric had not been lead false. A Blight was coming, and if the Architect had vanished or not, it had to be stopped. "But whether it is simply a dragon which a powerful demon has possessed and corrupted or something else, we do not know."

That statement in itself raised a whole line of questions in his mind, but seeing as they were nearing Duncan's sleeping quarters, he relented and asked the next question in mind "are the Grey Wardens an army?"

"We are too few," he said gravely, almost as if he thought it both a good and bad thing that more people were not Gray Wardens. "That is why we Grey Wardens require assistance from the king's armies and other sources."

Alim bit his lower lip pensively, but he believed him. Something about Duncan made him impossible to refute. Although he reminded him of an ice block floating in water where all you saw was the tip, he liked him. "That makes sense. So the king is mustering an army to beat back this threat?"

"Yes." His thirst for knowledge was almost palpable, and Duncan found that very interesting. "Perhaps it will be enough… if we play our cards right."

"I've heard of darkspawn sightings," he insisted tentatively, for that information was second hand and read about in books, "but an entire horde?" The very word 'horde' conjured up some very disturbing pictures in the back of his mind, each of them grimmer than the last. "There's really that many for the archdemon to call?"

"They usually move around in small groups," he agreed without affront, "but there are always more of them, lurking underground, biding their time."

Scrubbing his nose with his index finger, he turned his focus on his boots for a moment, his thoughts going rapidly one over the other before he met Duncan's eyes again. "I thought the darkspawn were destroyed in the last Blight?"

 _'If only that were so'_ , he thought almost wearily. "We can't seem to eradicate them completely." More was the pity, but there was so little known about their enemy. What had survived about their origins had been registered into Chantry lore, and how much truth was in it, he did not know. "Somehow, they always come back."

That certainly didn't sound pleasant, he mused silently, but his mind had already clicked over to something else. "Why were Irving and Greagoir arguing about the war?"

For the first time, he did not immediately answer him, wanting to test him, instead. "It is not my place to comment."

Because his tone was polite, if firm, he decided to meet it with equal civility to see if he'd reconsider. "Please? I'd like to know."

Alim didn't give up easily, and he had finesse. The Grey Wardens were renowned for anything from one time heroes astride soaring white griffons to a thin facade of the Order, maintained only to protect the worst of criminals. Desperate need bred requirements for many different skills, and although the griffons were extinct, he could certainly find use for a mage with a silver tongue. He gave him what he asked. "Greagoir serves the Chantry, and the relationship between the Chantry and mages has always been strained." A dire understatement, they both knew. "You've realized by now the Chantry merely tolerates magic? They watch only because they feel they must."

"Yes, I know," he agreed glumly. "I'm sure the Chantry would probably put us out like a snuffed candle if they could," he grumbled indignantly, "but they were arguing about the war?"

 _'Focused and stubborn. Good.'_ "Any mages who join the king's army can unleash their full power on the darkspawn. In fact, I'm counting on it. Greagoir may be afraid of what will happen. What if the mages decide they no longer want to be governed by the Chantry?" He waited to see what he would make of that, and his reply did not overly surprise him.

"What are your opinions on the matter?" he wanted to know instead of giving his own.

"I believe we must defeat the darkspawn one way or the other. My opinions end there." He closed the topic with a certain finality, having other ideas than drawing him into a debate about magic and the Chantry. Alim's reactions were more important to him than those concerns, all of which were trivial to him against the darkspawn incursions.

Recognizing he'd get nothing more out of the conversation along that path, he followed the meandering half-thought which had been percolating in the far most corners of his thoughts since he'd first seen him. "How many mages have joined the king's army?"

"When the king sent out the call, the Circle of Ferelden sent only seven mages to Ostagar. I asked king Cailan's permission to come and seek a greater commitment from the Circle."

Although he knew the Tower was not exactly Denerim as far as population went, that seemed like very few people compared to an entire army. Mages were powerful, of course, but putting only that handful into hundreds of soldiers seemed about as foolish as trying to fill a bucket with an eye dropper. The Circle wouldn't see it that way however, and he knew it from how Greagoir had been carrying on. "Seven is quite a few."

 _'Now who is trying to learn about who?'_ Duncan thought with an inner chuckle. "I hope to place a mage or two in every contingent. I can not do with just seven. Mages will make all the difference in this battle." He hadn't any idea exactly how prophetic those words would come to be, albeit for different reasons than he would have thought. "The darkspawn have their own magic, and our resources must exceed theirs."

He paused, his mind floating over imagined terrors of bloodshed, battle, and worse – darkspawn who could wield magic as he could. Could he be brave enough? Would he make a difference if he was? A critical part of him had already made up its mind. "Do you think I could join the army?"

"I don't know," he countered pleasantly, "do you?"

There was another long, soul searching pause, because truly he did not know if he would ever have the courage. Fleeing, screaming like a coward off the battlefield would not just be undignified, it would also be treasonous. It could get him killed. No more Alim Surana, last of his line.

He'd have to find out first hand if one's soul really went through the Fade to the Maker once they died or not. It wasn't a particularly pleasant thought, but at the same time… What if that death happened because he was helping protect Ferelden and by extension all of Thedas? Wouldn't that be worth it? What if he had the pluck to actually stand his ground and do something good with his life and magic? Be the proof Thedas needed that mages could be forces of good in the world, not just forces of chaos to be feared. He could show the world that elves were a people to be respected, not just slaves or servants.

Maybe he could even be a spear head in giving the elves a new homeland, a new Arlathan, as it were.

"Yes," he told him finally. "I think I could help."

"Then perhaps I shall speak to Irving about this later." Their conversation had convinced him he'd found who he'd come seeking. Many of the communities put on great tournaments to show the mettle of the finest warriors, but he preferred to find his recruits in other places. The task was difficult enough as it was, but those like Daveth, Alistair, and now this young man were what he needed for the Grey Wardens beyond just skill with weapon and shield.

"Darkspawn are a greater threat than blood mages or even abominations. It takes decades for the world to recover from a Blight. I wish the Chantry could see that. We must stop at nothing to defeat the darkspawn – Ah listen to me," he interrupted himself, his features relaxing. "An old man's rantings can't be very interesting."

Alim had a very different thought about that, and was honest when he hastily told him. "I do not mind, I learned much from what you said." It was not mere politeness which made him say it, and Duncan didn't seem that old to him anyway.

Duncan chuckled softly. "You are too kind."

He was afraid, however, that he'd wear out his welcome and his tolerance.

He had promised to speak to the First Enchanter, so perhaps he would. He hoped so, although another small part of him insisted that if he didn't, at least he'd remain safe in the familiar environment, rather than risking life and limb on a far off battlefield. Then it would be out of his hands, wouldn't it? After all, he had tried. "I should take my leave now."

"Do not let me keep you," he told him affably, and watched him depart.

Duncan had given him so much to think about that his mind felt like a jar of bees bouncing off the inside of his skull.

Everything in his life since he was seven had been ordered and safe, even if it was dull and occasionally irritating. What if the darkspawn were truly the threat that Duncan had implied? Nowhere would be safe. Darkspawn descended upon a land like locusts and plague together, slaughtering, burning, and would not be satisfied until everything was exterminated. There was no mercy, surrender, or living under another empire until a rebellion could carry the oppressed back to freedom.

Losing against a Blight meant the end of elves, qunari, dwarves, and mankind as entire races. Nowhere would be sacred, not even the stone walls of the Tower. The thought made a chill sweat bead along the base of his neck and dampen his robes in spite of the cool air circulating inside the edifice he called home.

Perhaps his subconscious was at the helm because he hadn't noticed where his feet had taken him until he realized he was standing in the doorway of his new quarters. Even though his belongings had not been brought up yet, he decided to change into his new robes.

Leaning his staff against the wall, he began stripping out of his robes. Not an overly difficult process, as it only consisted of three garments. A full length vestment that clung tightly to the torso and arms, but loosened at the waist to fall loosely around his ankles, a short hooded cloak that wrapped around his neck and fastened in the front and fell freely over his shoulders and upper arms and torso and a long skirt-like garment fastened to a leather belt that wrapped around the back of his waist and buckled in the front, leaving the long skirt open in the front.

He changed into his new robes with as much ease, as they were different only in embroidery. Enchantments too, but they weren't things that one would physically notice.

They were predominantly blue, and had a gold diamond pattern along the torso, and intricate gold patterns along the blue skirt, cloak, and blue designs along the hemlines of the gold vestment. Mage robes were different between elves and humans. Human robes were thicker and heavier, and a bit plain as it was more difficult to imbue such intricate embroidery in the thicker material. But the material of the elven robes were thinner and lighter, and the senior enchanters such as Whynne took every opportunity to imbue as much finery as they could in their guided cage.

Even the illusion of freedom was better than no freedom at all.

Finished with his task, he set off downstairs to the apprentice barracks. He made his way down the stairs to the first floor and into his previous rooms and proceeded to collect his trunk. He chuckled as he heard some of the apprentices, mostly females and some males, comment on how handsome and distinguished he looked with his new robes and staff.

As a fellow apprentice he was always too short, not that he was actually that shorter than any one of them but as an elf he was always percieved differently from the rest of them. But as a full fledged mage he was now all the rage it seemed, and all his previously unappealing traits were now sought after ones.

He did not mind the negative attention from before, and paid no attention to the new positive attention. Though as he heard some of the more suggestive comments he suddenly felt the urge to bolt out of there, but kept to a walking pace despite himself.

When he made it back to his room he set down his trunk and lied down on his bed, suddenly exhausted. He rested a hand on his forehead and chuckled at how quickly his lot had changed with a mere rank advancement. Though he suspected that that would soon change, as time passed the his new increase in rank would lose its allure and he would once more come to be looked at as simply Irving's 'pet pupil' once more.

He sat up in a meditation pose and fought down his blush, regained control of his emotions and calmed his racing heart. Once he was calm he stood up and decided to visit his favorite newly-appointed senior enchanter. He exited his room and made his way to the mage laboratory as he had heard that she was put in charge of the catacombs recently.

As he entered the large doors, he was warned by a nervous looking mage that Senior Enchanter Leorah was apparently in something of a bad mood. Leorah was an elven mage just a few years shy of being two decades his elder who was only recently promoted to senior enchanter. Undeterred, Alim went over to greet her.

He smiled at her nervously fidgeting form, facing away from him and toward the doors to the catacombs. Even just shy of forty years, she was still very beautiful. Her fully gray hair was pulled into a tight bun with her bangs hanging down and framing her face, her vibrant stormy gray eyes were lined with light tear troughs, and her long ears that would twitch or redden adorably when she was embarrassed.

Her lithe body was covered by her newly made formfitting red/pink senior enchanter robes, proudly showing off her curvy but willowy elven body.

He had to shake his head to get rid of his more amorous thoughts as his eyes couldn't help but drift to her shapely rear. Leorah was the Circle Tower's foremost authority on elvish culture and language, and was his instructor in such. Ever the curious child, he absorbed her teachings like a sponge, the two becoming fast friends over the years.

They even began to have 'secret meetings' around his fifteenth birthday. It wasn't easy however, to keep their meetings secret as the years rolled on, the templars were easy enough to mislead with excuses of elven meditation techniques, but the other mages were much more difficult, as they partook in such secret meetings themselves, but he was almost certain that Irving knew, as he seemed to know everything that happened in the tower.

Alim walked up behind her, and too preoccupied to hear his soft footsteps she seemed not to notice. "Hello Senior Enchanter Leorah" he said, placing his hand gently upon her shoulder. She jumped slightly at his touch with a small squeal.

Leorah was not a jumpy person, it was not easy to take her by surprise, and if anyone did she was more likely to punch whoever had the audacity to sneak up on her than jump. The templars did not take it well when she knocked their helmets off though, but they relented as her talents in magic ran more toward healing.

 _'Wait... did she just squeal?'_ he asked himself, shocked that he had heard such a thing _'it was... cute'_ he blushed slightly, and a certain part of his anatomy twitched, wanting to hear that sound more.

"Oh, hello Alim. Congratulations on your Harrowing. Is there something you need?" She seemed nervous as she said the last part but Alim chose to overlook it for now.

"Thank you, and congratulations on your promotion. Senior Enchanter, you must be thrilled." he said, making obvious his pride in her. She smiled widely at the look he gave her.

"Yes, it's been great, really, more responsibilities, having to manage things, make sure nothing goes wrong..." she trailed off with a worried look.

She was obviously bothered by something so Alim decided to be direct. "Leorah, What's wrong? You've wanted to be a senior enchanter for as long as I can remember. Now here you are newly promoted and completely on edge. Can you tell me what's bothering you?" Alim asked, sitting at the table beside her and resting a comforting hand on her arm.

Leorah looked at him for a moment before deciding to come clean. "Alright, the truth is there's a bit of a problem with the storerooms. They've been infested with giant spiders and I'm not sure what to do. I can't leave to deal with them myself and if anyone finds out about them they'll think I'm incompetent. I've only just been promoted, I couldn't handle the shame." Alim thought on her words for a moment.

He had nothing else to do at the moment and obliterating spiders would be good exercise. A poor excuse for wanting to aid his lovely teacher, he knew, but... "Alright, I'll help you." Her eyes widened for moment and she looked about to say something, but then she closed her mouth and her eyes softened and gleamed with an emotion he felt he recognized, but couldn't place.

More than three hours later Alim and Leorah emerged from the storerooms. Truthfully, it took him less than a half hour minutes to kill the fore dozen or so giant spiders that had infested the caves and burn the corpses into non-existence, but when he was about the leave the catacombs he found Leorah just inside the doors.

She was more than grateful and even rewarded him with a few potions. Alim figured they might come in handy at some point, and as he thanked her and turned to leave the stockrooms she stopped by gripping his wrist firmly and pulling him into a kiss.

* * *

He was fixing his braid, having already fixed his robes, while Leorah was tying her long hair back into its tight bun. He smirked, silently proud of himself as he had succeeded in his self imposed mission making her squeal again.

Once he had finished with his braid he made to turn to her, hugging her from behind and resting his chin on her shoulder, not tall enough to rest it on top of her head.

She turned her head to face him, and kissed him chastely once more, he reciprocated by sucking her bottom lip into his mouth. She moaned and looked at him with half lidded eyes with that same look in them that he had seen several times now but couldn't place.

"I love you" she said softly, as if all this was a dream and she would wake up if she spoke too loudly.

Alim froze, the sudden confession brought unto him a sudden awareness of what the look in her eyes was, what he was to her, what she was to him. Something that had plagued his soul, not having known what the warmth within was, but now being suddenly aware.

"I..." he started to say, but he could not finish it. After all these years together with her, and now more so than ever with her confession bringing enlightenment and understanding upon his heart and mind and soul, he knew without a doubt what he felt, and what he wanted more than anything to say.

But, for whatever reason that he did not understand, he could not finish it. Something, he did not know what, was blocking his words from coming out... no, he did know, it was himself.

He was afraid of... what? He did not know. He was not afraid that if he said it, that she would leave... nor was he afraid of her staying by his side if he said it... he was afraid of the templars separating them, but that was not what concerned him most, it was not what had him paralyzed with fear.

"I understand" she said, causing his eyes to widen and tears to well. "You are a young man yet. No matter how smart you are, how talented or strong, you are but a young man. So young and inexperienced in the ways of the world. I know, you do not have to say it.

"I know" she said, grasping his shaking hands with her own, "that right now you are not Alim Surana, newly harrowed mage and poster-child of the aequitarian fraternity, nor am I Leorah Anarie, your tough-as-nails instructor. We are simply a man and a woman having fun with each other."

He tightened his hold on her, her words of kindness and understanding in the face of his supposed rejection grating upon his very soul.

"You do not have to lie to me. This dalliance has come to have deeper meaning to me, this is true, but I would never expect you to feel the same for someone like me."

But no matter how understanding she was to him, no matter how many compassionate or kind the words she spoke to appease him, she could not mask the naked hurt he saw reflecting in her eyes. She left his embrace and made to leave the room, but he grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to look into his eyes as the tears finally fell.

What he could not speak, he could only hope to convey with his eyes, the windows to his soul, windows that could hide nothing. Leorah looked into his ever expressive eyes and wept herself, for she understood that her love was quite requited, and in that she knew a joy greater than anything the ever dreamed she could feel. They fell against each other in an embrace, both of them weeping in unbridled joy and love.

"I can not say it, I know not why" Alim admitted, she nodded, having naught to say in return. "I will say it, just not yet. For whatever reason, I can not bring myself to." He said, and she nodded again.

The two then simply stood in silence, their tears having dried up. Nothing else needed to be said.

* * *

Alim shut the door of the mage laboratory with a smile. Happy with the wonderful feelings now filling his heart to the bursting.

Upon entered the hallway he ran into Jowan.

His new-found happiness, it seemed, was not to last.

"Hello, Jowan," He said calmly, turning to face his friend. Jowan jumped slightly in surprise, he had just been about to announce his presence to his friend when it seemed that he already knew he was there.

This was not doing his nerves any favors.

"Oh, good. I was hoping to find you." Jowan whispered. Alim's smile lessened slightly at the nervousness in his friends voice and the way he was looking around.

"What's wrong, Jowan. Your very jumpy today." He said imperiously, not liking this, and remembering how Jowan acted before...

"I can't say here. Lets go somewhere more private." He said skittishly, like a rabbit who would be scared away if he spoke too loudly.

"Jowan, this isn't like you." Alim said, following the nervous apprentice. "And why are we going towards the chapel? This is not exactly the most private of places for a mage."

"We need to be here. I'll explain in a second." Jowan muttered as he pushed the door open slowly, not wanting them to creak and possibly alert anyone. There were not any templars in the chapel at the moment, and only one Sister. Surprisingly, Jowan headed right for her, Alim in tow _'why is he...'._

"Ok," he said when they reached her alcove, "we can talk here." Jowan seemed to perk up when he stood next to the red haired sister, making Alim suspicions return full force.

"Jowan you do realize one of the Chantry's Sisters is right behind you, don't you? That's not exactly privacy as far as I'm concerned." Alim asked, studying her suspiciously.

She was certainly attractive enough, for a human (or a sister), she had red hair peeking out from under her white hood, which when put together with her red Chantry robes and vibrant green eyes... this was not his day it seemed. Each minute spent around Jowan today only seemed to add to his unwanted suspicions of his friend.

"Oh I'm not a sister, just an Initiate," she responded, _'which doesn't explain why you're here, or how you got a mage to trust you so much,'_ she smiled slightly as she stepped up to stand beside Jowan, _'or maybe it does'_ he thought with narrowed eyes, the feeling of wrongness in his gut only increasing.

"Alim, you remember how I said I had, met a girl?" Jowan said, rubbing the back of his neck. "This is Lily."

"You... You can't be serious, can you?" Alim asked backing away slightly, his eyes widening and his long ears drooping in disbelief, hoping against hope that the two would start laughing at their joke, for it could only be a joke. Mages were ostracized enough as it was, and that included any romantic life they could have had, but with a Chantry sister... Jowan, he could understand, he was always a little slow on the uptake, but she had taken vows against this sort of thing, she had given herself to the Chantry, mind, body, and soul.

"I am," Jowan said, gently gripping Lily's hand. "I know what your thinking-" _'I highly doubt it'_ "-but I love her." She smiled warmly at him, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

He wanted more than anything to explode at his friend, reminding him about Arthur and Conan who had similarly been taken in by the wiles of a Chantry sister. Both of them had thought they had fallen in love, and perhaps they did at that, but when the templars inevitably caught them in the act the sisters chose to, instead of face punishment or defend their lovers, label them mind domineering blood mages forcing them into illicit acts.

He wanted more than anything to explode at Lily, reminding her of the oaths she had taken, about how there must have been other initiates, sisters, mothers, or even clerics who had fallen in love but chose to keep to their vows and abstain. He wanted to ask her what she thought made her so special that she could indulge herself without consequences when all others who broke their vows so callously were punished!

But instead, he just used his breathing techniques to calm himself down. His own recent experiences with love made him want to give them the benefit of the doubt, against his better judgement or not.

"Don't tell me you've only brought me here to talk about your affair. This is your business, and not an issue to be discussed at this point. You both are already in too deep to go back to normalcy so I won't try to talk you out of it." They both looked nervous at his stern look like a couple of small children caught doing something bad.

"No." Jowan said sourly, his face falling. "There is something else." He glanced helplessly at Lily, who was also frowning. _'Sod it all, this can't be good.'_

"I was in the First Enchanters office yesterday, and I saw something very disturbing," she said, and Alim could hear the genuine fear tinting her voice, something that made him reconsider her being like Sisters Petrice or Guenevieve.

"They are planning to make Jowan Tranquil" she said lowly, and Alim could almost feel his heart stop and his blood run cold.

"No, no that isn't possible " Alim whispered in horror.

Death was not the worst thing that could befall a mage of the Circle, it may be a particularly final sentencing, but there was the possibility of a better life afterwards at the Maker's side. But no matter what, you were yourself right up until the end, whether you went begging and screaming or silently and with a smile, it was always your choice.

Tranquility, however, was far worse. Using some ritual involving a lyrium brand, the templars cut the mage off from the Fade. This took away the person's magic, which could be considered a good thing to some, because that was what allowed mages to be possessed by Fade demons. Hence the reason Tranquility was offered as an alternative to the Harrowing.

The flip side was was that the process also removed all emotions from the victim. For all intents and purposes, the new Tranquil was an empty husk, able to exist, but not to truly live. Contrary to popular belief, however, tranquil still held their free will. It was only emotions and dreams that were lost, anything else like fighting ability or ambition or actual thoughts were still there.

There were some cultures that used tranquil mages exclusively as their armed forces. Since the tranquil did not know anger or fear, they could carry out orders to the letter without anything, not even common decency, getting in the way. Anyone could tell right from wrong, but it took emotions to care.

It got even worse since it wasn't just an option given to mages. Alim was sympathetic towards those like like Owain that had chosen their path, then at least it had been their choice.

There were others, however, who had Tranquility forced upon them. Those whom the templars considered too weak to pass the Harrowing, and therefor were taken away and forced to be Tranquil. They were murdered without even having the finality of death. The first time someone Alim knew had been forced to undergo Tranquility, he had been 9.

He had spent much of that night hugging his pillow and crying, partially because of her loss, and partially to reassure himself that he still could. To reassure himself that he was still a person and not an empty shell like his former friend.

His horror slowly turned to rage. _'Those bastards are planning to take another friend from me?'_ he mentally hissed. _'Over my dead body.'_

"Are you alright?" Lily asked worriedly, "you need to calm down, it's getting hard to breathe." This did not even begin to describe what was happening. Alim's fury was causing his magic to flare up, condensing the air around him. If anyone were to try to touch him, they would have had their hands go completely numb for their trouble. Alim closed his eyes, then started breathing slowly.

He used his breathing techniques again, forcing his rage down. Finally, he opened his eyes. "Why? What excuse have they come up with?" The blinding rage that had filled him was gone, but the two before him recoiled slightly at the cold hate in his voice.

"There are rumors, that I'm a... blood mage. They think that making me a full mage would put the Tower at risk." This admission made Alim pause. Rumors did not typically spring up from nothing, but to suspect Jowan...

"Are you?" Alim asked bluntly, hoping to goad an honest response from him by the shock factor of the sudden inquiry.

"Of course not!" Jowan insisted far too quickly, shaking his head vigorously. "But that doesn't matter. The templars only have to think I am. They'll take everything from me!" He wailed. "My magic, my soul, my love for Lily, all gone!"

"Jowan, I need to talk to you." Alim said quietly.

"But we are-"

"Privately" Alim insisted, dragging Jowan off towards the other side of the chapel. Lily started to follow, but backed off as Alim's icy eyes turned on her.

"What is this about?" Jowan asked. "Lily is helping-"

"How much do you trust her?" Alim interrupted his friend again. "We only have her word that this isn't a trap."

"How could you?" Jowan hissed. "I know Lily. She wouldn't be a part of any trap!"

"Are you willing to bet your life on that? She's one of them."

"No, she isn't!" Jowan retaliated. "I love Lily, I trust her with my life. Please, understand that. I know how you feel on these matters, but she is not like them!"

" Fine. On your head be the consequences. Just know that I don't trust her." Jowan opened his mouth for a moment before closing it and walking stiffly back to Lily, followed by Alim.

"Will you help us?" she asked worriedly.

"I need to think on this... I won't tell anyone." He said, but then added when he caught Jowan's worried look.

"I understand, but please don't take too long." Lily said to him, and he nodded to her before he walked away to think about all this new information... as well as the suspicions that he did not want to think of, but were fitting too well into place to be coincidence.

_'Sod, I've picked a lovely situation for myself, now haven't I?'_


	4. Bound in Blood and Magic part 2, Betrayal

**Arcane Warrior**

**Chapter 3**

**Bound in Blood and Magic**

**Part 2**

**Betrayal**

* * *

Alim walked slowly out of the Chantry on leaden feet, his footsteps slow and ponderous as his mind was burdened by thoughts of what he should do with the information he just recieved from his lifelong friend.

Jowan, who had always been a good friend to him and the other apprentice mages, consorting with a chantry sister. Everyone knew he was a little soft in the head, but this... this was sheer madness.

Every mage knew that romantic relations of any sort were forbidden in the tower, though not quite to the point of punishment, due primarily to Gregoir's rather liberal stance on mage treatment.

But a relationship between a mage and a chantry initiate? The best case scenario would be for Lily to oust Jowan as a maleficar, as in that case it would only be him to be punished for his own actions.

The worst case scenario however would be for Lily and Jowan to defend their love as true as they had told him and choose to share in the punishment for their actions. If that were to happen, the templars would most likely restrict the rules on relations further to the point of punishment.

Perhaps things would get so bad that the knight commander would invoke the Right of Tranquility for any mage who was caught taking a lover like he had heard from the mages transfered from some of the stricter circles.

The sense of bliss left from his parting with Leorah was now lost, replaced with the knowledge that his friend might very well be put through the Right of Tranquility in the near future, that said friend had an illegal affair with an initiate of the Chantry, was suspected to be a blood mage, and that said friend wanted Alim to make him an apostate.

True, he was only assuming the latter most detail, but given the circumstances there was nothing else that Jowan would ask his help with.

He was also infuriated with his 'friend' for getting him involved, secrets could not remain such forever, and once it got out as it oh so inevitably would, he would be labelled as a criminal for keeping this information to himself. Therefore, by helping Jowan escape and making him an apostate, the only true options he himself was left with were to become an apostate along side him or to sacrifice himself to the templars to give him the chance to escape.

He knew in his heart that Jowan likely wasn't smart enough to realize it, but by bringing him into the loop and asking for his help, he was truly giving him no choice but to sacrifice himself, one way or the other.

Of course there was always the possibility that Graegoir knew of Lily's affair and was using her in some grand gambit, knowing that they would go to him, what with Jowan and he being so close, giving him the excuse he so wanted to get rid of him. But then again Graegoir really wasn't that much of a manipulator, prefering to live as an example for the men and women under his command to follow, doing his duty by the book and without falshoods.

As he passed through the library, he absent mindedly picked up a book he had been meaning to read. He sat down in the creaky old chair in the hopes that engaging in some light reading would help to clear his mind as it always had in the past.

Alim sighed, it was a difficult place to be. If Jowan was truly using blood magic, and the elf was unsure he truly believed his friend when he denied the fact, then he deserved to be Tranquil. But there was no way to be sure. As a mage he knew his duty, and that was to report to the First Enchanter. Perhaps Irving would be able to calm his fears about Jowan being a blood mage if nothing else.

* * *

"I trust you saw Duncan back to his quarters?" Irving asks, looking up briefly as Alim walked into his office once again.

"Of course, First Enchanter." Alim said and looked around the room for anything that might play into his suspicions.

"I'm glad you met him. He's a most honorable man." Irving said.

"I agree. It was an honor to have met him." Alim says, genuinely honored to have met someone so important as the Commander of the Gray.

"Grey Wardens are peerless warriors who sacrifice all for our sakes." He ran his hand slowly across his head as he spoke, clearly deep in thought even as he addressed his star pupil. "We can learn much from them. Now, did you need something?"

Alim stopped his pacing as he spied the books on the First Enchanter's desk. He had read practically every book in first two floors of the tower and he recognized most of these titles, though he did remember that they seemed to have disapeared from the first floor library as of late. "Why do you have books on blood magic on your desk?"

Irving paused. "I've removed them from the library. I was…advised it might be unwise to leave them where any apprentice may read them. They will be put away somewhere very safe."

Alim sighed in disappointment, he was hoping that he wouldn't find something like this, the suspicions gnawing at his mind didn't need any added fuel any longer. At this point it was more unlikely that Jowan actually wasn't a blood mage. But even if all the clues pointed in that direction, it didn't necessarily mean it was true.

He tried to convince himself of this, not wanting to believe his friend of evil.

The books in the library had given Jowan a way to learn blood magic, if nothing else. Not an easy way certainly, as the books were simply historical texts and chantry teachings about blood magic.

He had to ask, there was nothing for it.

His body tensed as he spoke. "When is Jowan going through the Harrowing?" His voice inaudibly trembled as he asked, and Irving raised an eyebrow at the seemingly out of topic question "When he is ready."

"He... fears he is going to be made Tranquil." Alim admitted at last, somewhat relieved to tell one so much wiser than himself.

"And how does he know this? I suppose the young initiate he dallies about with revealed it to him" he said, shocking Alim into silence. He had suspected that Irving, as the master of the tower, might already know, but to hear it confirmed was something else entirely.

He had to wonder in the back of his mind if Irving also knew about him and Leorah, or indeed about every other couple that formed within these walls.

"You think I didn't know?" He said to Alim's surprised face "I did not become first enchanter by keeping my eyes and ears shut." His voice was almost harsh as he said this.

Biting his lip, Alim continued. "So it's true?" his quiver audible this time.

Irving nodded, his voice soft again. "I'm afraid it is. Greagoir says he has proof—and eyewitness testimony—that Jowan has been practicing blood magic. I cannot say more. Were it left to me, things might be different. But the Chantry…" He sighed in surrender that he would have to punish one of his own so seriously. "I'm sorry child, this Rite of Tranquility will happen."

Alim looked away to hide his tearful expression, not that turning away did him any good as the sagely man saw it anyway and allowed him a moment of silence.

Jowan had lied to him, he knew the consequences for blood magic, and the truth of the matter made Alim's insides ache. His first instinct was to claim that Greagoir's testimony to be a lie, but he knew full well how Greagoir viewed mages, and he knew that even though that man distrusted them, he would not lie about such an important matter.

There was only one 'right' thing to do now. "You must know that Jowan plans to escape the Circle….he plans to destroy his phylactery." He ignored the fact that once again he was only assuming that last detail, but there was nothing else it could be, it wasn't even a gamble, he was so certain of this that he would stake his life on it.

If a... he hated himself for admitting it... maleficar wanted to escape from Kinloch Hold, then they would certainly try to destroy their leash first.

Irving put his hands behind his back and walked closer. "And I suppose his lady friend is involved? Yes, she must be helping him. She would know more about the repository than he would. Do you know anything else?"

Alim shook his head. "No, I came to see if you could confirm Jowan's dabbling in blood magic before I proceeded."

Irving sighed. "I suspected Lily would tell him of the impending Rite if she found out. But I never expected they would have the gall to break into the repository."

"What will you do with Jowan?" he asked somewhat hopefully.

"Reporting him to Greagoir and the templars will accomplish nothing beyond what's already planned." Irving admitted, "if the Circle must punish one of its own, I will see the Chantry does the same courtesy. Lily will not walk free while my apprentice suffers." Irving's face was dark, and there was a undertone to his voice Alim didn't think possible from the calm, kind old man.

"Could you not just tell them she's involved?" He asked, already knowing the answer, but still hopeful that he was wrong and that the Chantry would deal out punishment to one of it's own and not make up excuses, taking the words of an elf-blooded human mage and his elven apprentice over that of an initiate.

Irving shook his head. "If we mention her involvement, the Chantry will say she was framed. No, she must be caught in the act." Alim sighed—it was true. It was unfair of the Chantry to let Lily walk free. It was her information that led to the decision facing the three now.

"Jowan will become Tranquil, but Lily must also face the consequences of her actions." Irving continued in a grim tone, "How did you learn of their plan? Do they trust you?"  
Alim pressed his eyelids together tightly, he had never known that duty would taste so bitter. "Yes, they do."

"Good. Convince them you will risk all for their cause. I will be outside the repository with a contingent of templars. Let them see the mischief into which their initiate has led our student." He said and tapped his staff on the ground, the loud crack of silverite on stone signifying that they were finished with meeting and Alim bowed and left.

Alim walked back into the Chantry and pulled Jowan aside one last time. "I need to talk to you about one thing before I decide Jowan." He said quietly, his soft voice rumbling in his chest.

His friend's eyes widened. "Really, what is it?"

"The rumor about you being a blood mage isn't true? Do you swear?"

"Of course not!" Jowan growled, frowning. "I'd never use blood magic. I've been sneaking around to meet Lily in secret. Maybe others have seen me and assumed I must be doing something forbidden. I suppose we are, but…they think it's blood magic, and it isn't." He pleaded, not knowing the irony in his statement. Using blood magic or dallying with a priest, both were crimes worthy of the Rite of Tranquility in the eyes of the Chantry.

Alim sighed, Jowan had sealed his fate. So be it, there was nothing more that he could do for him. "Alright then, I'll help you." His stomach still knotted as he spoke, he was pitting one loyalty against another, and if he was wrong in this it would mean catastrophe.

Lily walked back to Jowan's side and smiled, holding her lover's arm. "Thank you. We will never forget this." Alim cringed inside. "I can get us into the repository. But there's a problem. There are two locks on the phylactery chamber door. The first enchanter and knight-commander each hold one key. But it is just a door. There is power enough in their place to destroy all of Ferelden. What's a door to mages?"

Her statement was... slightly insulting, to be honest. Of course her estimation of their power was flattering, but the casual and dismissive way she said it sounded like she was saying that mages not only could do such a thing, but would feel nonchalant or apathetic about such a thing as well.

_'What does Jowan see in her? I could live to be one hundred and still never understand humans.'_

It didn't help his opinion of her that she was already on his bad side for getting them into this mess.

"What if it's an enchanted door?" Alim mused, and Lily and Jowan's eyes widened, they clearly hadn't thought of that.

Jowan shook his head. "We have no choice. We cannot get our hands on both keys." He paused. "I once saw a rod of fire melt through a lock. You could get one from the stockroom—I'd do it, but Owain doesn't release such things to apprentices."

Nodding, Alim agreed. "I will go and retrieve a rod of fire." He gritted his teeth, he really had to get a hold of himself, he was going to give himself away if he kept fighting himself like this.

Lily looked up at Jowan, stars in her eyes. A look which Jowan returned in earnest.

After seeing the same look from Leorah, only directed at him, it became painfully obvious to him that she actually was serious in her devotion to his friend. His eyes softened at the sight, he had yet to return Leorah's confession. He decided to head to the laboratory after this to go see her.

Alim gripped his staff tightly as his heart gave a lurch, anyone capable of such love and devotion as he could see between them could never be so irredeemable, blood magic or not. "We should stay here." She said softly. "One mage at the stockroom will attract less attention than a mage, an apprentice and an initiate. Our prayers go with you" she said sincerely.

Just as there were a great many priests who viewed magic as a curse, a mark of the Maker's hatred upon their souls, there were those who viewed magic as a gift from the Maker. They viewed magic as as the Maker's gift to those chosen by him to protect and look after the world he had created and abandoned. Of course these were but fringe elements of the Chantry, and only preached this philosophy behind closed doors.

Perhaps Lily was such a one, and maybe that was why Jowan was attracted to her.

Either way though, Alim couldn't leave the room quick enough. The whole situation made him feel dirty, but what he was doing seemed to him to be the lesser of two evils. His heart beat quicker than when he had been fighting in the Fade as he hurried to the storeroom. Owain, the tranquil mage who managed the store room, was waiting there as he always was.

Alim idly wondered if Owain ever slept. But that was silly, he admonished himself, the man was tranquil; he may not have emotions, but he was still human.

Despite having no emotions, or perhaps because he had no emotions, Owain was very perceptive. He would have to carefully watch what he said and how he acted in front of him.

"Welcome to the Circle's stockroom of magical items. How may I assist you?" He called out from the desk he sat behind as he saw Alim approach.

Smiling, Alim waved. "Hello again Owain. I need a rod of fire."

The Tranquil went back to scribbling on the pages before him. "Rods of fire serve many purposes. Why do you wish to acquire this particular item?"

Biting his tongue, Alim quickly replied "I need it for a research project I am undertaking. I'm no good at fire magic so I'm going to need to use a workaround to get things going."

He knew that a convincing lie needed a reasonable and believable premise to build upon. He was just grateful that Owain was tranquil, otherwise the lie would need to be more complex.

Alim may have been skilled in a number of areas, but his skill in lying was certainly his weakest area. That was not necessarily a bad thing, but under the circumstances...

Plus, perhaps admitting to a personal shortcoming would help matters some.

Owain didn't look up from his work. "I will set down that you require the rod of fire to deal with a personal matter. Here is the form—"Request for Rod of Fire." Have it signed and dated by a senior enchanter. I will release a rod to you once I have the signed form." Owain said emotionlessly and efficiently.

Alim sighed as he took the form and walked away. He understood fully why mages were no longer allowed to take from the storeroom freely and the need for all this protocol. All that needed to be said on that matter was that Lily's earlier statement about the tower having enough power to destroy all of Ferelden was not entirely an estimation.

It was thanks only to a young Irving's actions that they were not Annulled.

Part of him hadn't wanted to get away with fooling Owain. But regardless, he needed to find a senior enchanter to sign his slip. Of course, he could always ask Irving, however the more he was seen with the first enchanter, the more he feared Jowan would find out the plan.

So, he had to find someone else.

As luck would have it, that someone else turned out to be none other than Leorah herself.

He was relieved that the laboratory was empty save for her when he got there, with nobody there he wouldn't have to lie to her which was the last thing he wanted. Of course he couldn't tell the truth either, doing so would have put the operation in jeopardy.

"Oh, hello again love" she said when she saw him, and he smiled and pecked her on the lips. "I need another favor."

"Oh?" she asked with an amused and teasing look "I should hope this favor won't be as draining as the last one I owed you, I can still hardly walk." She finished with a gesture toward her seated position. He blushed heavily and rapidly shook his head in the negative, causing her to burst out laughing.

He groaned to himself, she was normally strict and intimidating, but when they were alone with each other she allowed her more playful and humorous side to come out.

 _'I'm not so sure that's a good thing anymore'_ he thought in jest.

"Oh calm down Alim, I'm just playing with you," she said through her laughing. He couldn't help but smile as his depression over the situation with Jowan was washed away by her sweet sounding laughter.

Women were natural anti-depressants, they just had to smile or laugh, and it lit up the whole world.

"No" he said, trying to get back to the task at hand, "I just need you to sign this form." He handed her the form and knelt down to pick up his staff, cradling it in his right hand.

"A rod of fire? What's going on, you wouldn't be trying to use magic tools to disguise your lack of efficiency with primal magic, would you?"

She was now in her 'stern teacher' mode, clearly thinking that he intended do something like hide the rod in his sleeve to cheat on an exam or something. With everything that was happening, the thought seemed so rediculous that he wanted to laugh, and probably would have were it not for Leorah's glare.

Surprisingly, the woman somehow managed to seem intimidating even despite her seated position and the flush on her cheeks.

He instantly sobered up, "I'm doing a service for Master Irving. I wish I could say more, but I just can't." She raised an eyebrow at his hesitant posture, but knowing how much he revered his grandfather figure, and knowing he would not lie about something like this, she relented.

"Sure why not, what harm could it do." She laid the form down on the table and dipped her quill into its ink well, causing him to sigh in relief.

He promised himself that if he survived all of this he would sit her down and explain everything. She would undoubtedly be angry with him for taking such a large risk to see one initiate brought to justice, but he knew she would understand his initiative.

"Thank you" he said retrieving the signed form and kissing her again, but lingering a little longer this time. They separated and he began to walk away, but was stopped short by a tug on his hand, so he turned around to see that she was still holding his free hand.

They shared a smile and a quick laugh before he left the laboratory. He blew her a kiss before he went out the doors, and she made a catching gesture and pressed the hand to her heart.

Alim quickly walked down the hallway back to the storeroom, lost in his thoughts.

It just occurred to him that if this all went badly, he might never see Leorah again. Or even worse, she might think him a traitor to the Circle, follower of a blood mage. That thought, more than any other, made him resolute in his first task as an official mage of Kinloch Hold.

* * *

The bald Tranquil's blue eyes stared at him. "Do you have the form?" The elven mage nodded and handed the paper over. Owain thoroughly looked the small piece of paper. "Everything looks to be in order." He walked over to one of the locked cabinets in the back of the room and drew a thin, white ostentatiously designed wand.

"Here is the rod you requested." Slowly, Alim bowed and attempted to walk confidently out the door and down to the Chantry.

From the rate he was breathing, he assumed he was not accomplishing 'normal' behavior. Soon enough, however, he was at the Chantry, and he joined Jowan and Lily in their corner. He could hear Jowan muttering as he approached. Leaning in close to the two he said softly, "I have the rod."

Jowan's face lit up. "That was quick!"

Lily smiled beside him. "To the repository then, freedom awaits."

The three walked slowly, making small talk down to the first floor where the apprentice dormitories and the basement door were. Alim was sending out small magic waves of magical energy to detect if anyone came to close and evade them so they weren't seen, making sure to keep the waves just weak enough that they blended seamlessly with the ambient magic of the tower.

He told himself that even if they were caught on the way down to the basement, a mage, an apprentice, and a priest were not that much of an unusual sight to be completely out of place.

Priests normally took every opportunity they could get to convince mages of how much the Maker and the world he created loathed their very existence. Killing mages outright was ethically wrong, but talking them into severe depression and/or suicide was perfectly acceptable.

Okay, so that was a bit of an overstatement on his part, but sometimes it truly felt that way.

Still, he preferred not to take any chances.

Stopping outside the heavy wooden door to the lower reaches of the tower, they waited until the area was clear and then bolted into the basement.

The repository was unnaturally cold, Alim could see his breath mist before him. They walked the single passage for a while before coming onto a large wooden door, reinforced with many overlapping boards and large metal bolts. Besides the size, there was a small sparking of magic around the door that intimidated Alim, it was both mage and templar in nature.

He could not tell what kind of spell it was though, despite it being some kind of barrier.

The lady initiate piped up beside him. "The Chantry calls this entrance 'The Victims' Door.' It was built of two hundred and seventy-seven planks, one for each original templar. It is a reminder of all the dangers those cursed with magic pose." After Alim raised a rather accusatory eyebrow at her she quickly continued. "Initiates must learn the Circle's history if they are to work with templars and mages. The door can be opened only by a templar and a mage entering together. The Chantry provides the password which primes the ward, and the mage touches it with mana to release it."

"But Jowan..." he said, pointing out the apparent unnecessity of his presence.

She paused. "Only a mage that has undergone their Harrowing may open the door."

Nodding, Alim stepped closer to the door. "I trust you have the password?" he said in a clipped tone, noting from the way she said 'cursed with magic' was not in a disagreeing way in any stretch of the imagination, meaning that he was wrong in his earlier estimation of her, and that even though she was in love with a mage, she was not one of those who sympathized with mages.

"Yes. I got it from a templar who recently accompanied a mage into the vault," making Alim raise an eyebrow at her "and he wasn't suspicious of you?" He questioned her on her odd behavior, making Jowan roll his eyes at his friend's 'overly suspicious nature' as he said.

"We have chatted on many occasions, I believe he trusts me." She shrugged and pressed her hand to the door.

"First, the password. 'Sword of the Maker, Tears of the Fade.'" A clicking noise echoed, followed by a small hissing noise that indicated the release of the barrier. Lily lowered her hand and continued softly. "The password only primes the door. Now it must feel the touch of mana. Any spell will do, but hurry."

With a flick of his wrist, Alim fired a bolt of spirit energy at the door. The bolt dissipated and the door slowly inched open with a creak, his mind making it sound louder then it was from the stress. Directly in front of them now stood another large heavy door. The air was deadly still around the door as they approached, and Alim quickly pulled the wand out of a hidden pocket in his sleeve. Pointing the rod at the large silver lock on the door he directed his power through it.

Nothing happened.

Lily mewled beside him. "What's the matter? Why isn't it working?"

Alim carefully placed his free hand on the door. "I'm not sure..." He muttered looking the door over, tapping his staff on the ground in annoyance.

Jowan stared at his hands, then looked up at his love. "Lily…something's not right. I…can't cast spells here, nothing works."

Alim studied the area around the door and saw runes on the floor and walls, the same runes etched into the walls of the harrowing chamber. "I read about these markings…they're wards. Templar work, they negate any magic cast within the area." He said finally, turning to face the other two.

Lily's face darkened in hopelessness. "I should have guessed! Why would Greagoir and Irving use simple keys for such a door? Because magical keys don't work!" She laid her hand against the door and her head against her arm. "How do you keep mages away from something? Make their powers completely worthless!" She growled and threw her hands into the air.

"That's it then. We're finished! We can't get in." _'You'd make a terrible mage, you would get possessed instantly with that defeatist attitude'_ were his thoughts that went unsaid for Jowan's sake.

Alim desperately wanted to turn back, to just leave Jowan and Lily to their fates, but he had sworn to Irving and himself that he would carry this through. "That door there," he pointed down the hall. "Where does that lead?"

Lily shrugged. "I don't know. Do you think it's another way in?" she asked with a voice so full of hope that he almost pitied her.

Jowan rested his hand on Lily's shoulder softly. "That door probably leads to another part of the repository. What are the chances of there being another entrance?" He glanced at his elven friend.

Alim shrugged. "It's worth a try, right? Who knows…we might be able to make another entrance if we get out of this anti-magic zone…."

The Chantry initiate and lone woman nodded. "We can't get into the chamber the way we planned but we're not about to give up" she said, confirming Alim's beliefs about her, her emotions swung too often and too out of control, which would have led to her immediate possession had she been born a mage, "we can see where this door leads, but I don't think it'll be easy…it looks locked for one."

Alim groaned in annoyance, when this whole debacle was over he was working on a spell that opened locks. Crazy that no mage had discovered one yet, but then again, he wouldn't know if one had been invented or not because the templars would have forbidden it from being taught.

"The rod will work on those locks, shouldn't it?" he asked, idly twirling the rod in his left hand.

She smiled slightly "yes, let's hope they haven't warded that door as well."

Jowan nodded, heading towards the door "let's hurry, we've wasted enough time."

The very atmosphere seemed to change as they moved away from the warded door. Wand still in hand, Alim aimed for the lock. Sure enough, the wand melted through the metal lock easily. As the molten metal dripped to the floor, the door clicked open. Sighs escaped from the two humans behind him, relieved as expected.

What was not as expected was the clinking...as he turned around a suit of armor resembling the plate armor worn by the templarsliterally clamored over to them. If it had had a face, Alim assumed it would have been enraged; it was obvious from the raised greatsword that it wasn't there to escort them around the place. Lily hung behind Jowan as the two mages began to face off against the armor.

Instinctively, Alim took his staff into both hands and raised it up to block the overhead swing of the sword, and he then moved his staff up and to the left to put his opponent off balance and followed with a horizontal downward swing to knock it from its feet.

Once the empty suit of armor was on its back and he had some breathing room, he quickly took up the hilt of his spirit blade. Pointing it on the downed but recovering sentinel, he ignited the blade and stabbed it deep into the empty armor.

The suit's hands twitched as if in pain for a second before it stopped moving.

"Wow, you didn't even need my help for that. Maybe I should just leave all the fighting to you." Jowan joked with a lighthearted look, while Lily just looked shocked that a mage could be so good at physical combat or that an elf could be so strong. He didn't respond, simply turning to them with a stern look, which Jowan could only hold his hands up in surrender at "I'm joking! Just joking."

Every corridor and every room, more of those living armor creatures attacked, some of them even seemed to be mages.

Lily mumbled during the second attack about the 'unnaturalness' of it all, how the guardians were not of the Maker. Alim simply saw them as another example of Chantry hypocrisy. "No Lily," he started, getting annoyed at her attitude, "these things are not of the Maker. These things are of the Chantry, and their sole purpose for existing? The wholesale slaughter of those who step out of bounds or go where the Chantry feels they don't belong." He almost shouted, gaining him an almost tearful look from the 'innocent' initiate and an angry look from her lover.

His eyes softened at the look she gave him. He loved women, he admired everything about the fairer sex almost to a fault, and to see the girl almost crying tore at his heart. "I'm sorry Lily" he said with a genuinely apologetic expression, leaning his staff against his neck and placing both his hand on her shoulders reassuringly, "it's just that I'm not exactly Andrastian myself, and the hypocrisy of these things angers me."

She looked at him like she wanted to argue with him, but she simply wiped at her eyes and lamented with a silent nod.

Crates littered the halls and storage ways, and Alim found himself wondering what mysteries were stored in the deep places of the Circle Tower. It seemed they had no time to investigate though, as his two companions pushed him through the tunnels. The path stopped into a large room, filled to the roof with books, boxes and several statues. The three walked around the high-ceilinged room with wide eyes. Alim found himself drawn to a statue of a human woman in a back corner.

The statue was a masterful work of art, made of a beautiful white marble. The woman depicted seemed to be a mage wearing ancient Tevinter style robes, she held a staff in her right hand that seemed to be carved from the same marble as the rest of the statue.

The statue seemed to stare at them as they approached.

Jowan was the first to step past him and approach the statue "there's something odd about that statue."

Alim soon stood by him. "I wonder who this is, I mean it is obviously a female mage from ancient Tevinter if the robes mean anything."

"Greetings." The statue's seductive voice seemed to echo.

"Maker's breath!" The apprentice gasped, and Alim's eyes widened as he remembered reading horror stories about the Imperium's harsher punishments, such as transforming the offender into a sentient statue for all eternity.

"Did it just say something?"

The spirit's voice echoed disturbingly "I am the essence and spirit of Eleni Zinovia, once consort and advisor to Archon Valerius. Prophecy my crime, cursed to stone for foretelling the fall of my lord's house."

"Archon Valerius?" Alim knew the archons were the lords of the Imperium—mostly overthrown when Andraste founded the Chantry, and Valerius in particular ruled during an unspecified time during the ancient age, who was killed and his house destroyed, just as the statue said.

"'Forever shall you stand on the threshold of my proud fortress,' He said, 'and tell your lies to all who pass…' But my lord found death at the hands of his enemies and his once-proud fortress crumbled to dust, as I foretold."

Lily trembled behind Jowan. "A Tevinter statue! Don't listen to it! The Tevinter lords dabbled in many forbidden arts! This is a wicked thing!"

Alim had to suppress a growl at her blind piety. He was an elf and a mage, so he more than anyone had a right to hate the Imperium, but to hate something just because it came from that place...

She, on the other hand, had absolutely no reason to hate or even be afraid of the Imperium, except of course for conditioned hatred. She only had negative feelings for Tevinter because someone told her to, and she had thoughtlessly obeyed like a child. The Imperium destroyed his ancestors lives and they were the reason mages were oppressed by the Chantry, so he had very good reasons to despise them, but her...

He had to calm himself down before before his anger attracted any attention from the other side.

It was in that moment that he decided that Lily was just as mentally addled as her lover appeared to be ever since this girl was introduced to him. Neither of them able to see the others faults. He had no idea how Jowan could have such devotion for her when every other word out of her mouth was an affront to mages.

 _'Humans'_ he thought with a sneer. But that was not fair of him, he admitted, he had absolutely no problem with humans. They were racist true, and afraid of anything they did not understand or was different from them, and he pitied them for it. But even that was not true for all of them, Irving didn't have a single racist bone in his body, and it was from him that he had learned altruism, kindness and selflessness.

"It must have been here for years." Jowan shrugged and wrapped his arms around his love. "Look at the dust. I feel a little sorry for it…her." He added quickly.

"Weep not for me, child." The statue continued. "Stone they made me, and stone I am. Eternal and unfeeling. And I shall endure 'til the Maker returns to light their fires again."

Alim shuddered. The punishment heaped upon this woman seemed like a crueler version of the Right of Tranquility. At least the tranquil could die, but to be cursed with emotionlessness as well as eternal life seemed to him like he would be doing her a favor by destroying this statue.

"What does that mean?" he asked, but Jowan spoke before she could respond "ambiguous rubbish, it could mean anything. I can do it too: The sun grows dark, but lo! Here comes the dawn!"

Creeping from behind Jowan, Lily placed her hands on Alim's arm. "Stop talking to it." She mewled. "Please, both of you."

"Yes, we have much to do." He said through gritted teeth as he threw Lily's arm off.

Lily just stood there for a moment, surprised at this elf's strength. She had always assumed that with his small stature and thin limbs, he would only be slightly stronger than a human child without the aid of magic.

Alim noticed her daze _'and she's racist too'_ he thought with a suppressed growl _'she probably wouldn't have even come to me with this if Jowan didn't talk her into it'_

Near the petrified woman was another statue, this time of a sitting wolfhound, perhaps an ancestor of the mabari.

The statue was slightly decayed, but Alim recognized it as a device used by the Tevinters to amplify their magic. Against the adjacent walls were bookshelves, all old, but one seemed to stand out as it stood against a section of wall that looked like it was decayed by decades of dripping water. Jowan walked over to the wall and placing his hand to his chin. "I think the phylactery chamber is on the other side of the wall behind this bookcase."

Alim peered behind the bookcase. "The wall looks weak here."

"We should be able to find something that can knock some of the bricks loose."

The new mage already had a plan. "You'll have to help me with the bookcase then." Jowan nodded and the two mages lifted the shelf off to the side. Alim then went to the statue and rotated it to face the exposed wall and pressed the rod of fire to it's neck.

Of course he contemplated using one of his own spells instead, but the rod of fire, much weaker than a fireball cast by even the weakest of mages, seemed perfect to use on an amplification statue.

A stream of blue fire burst from the statue's mouth and burst through the weakened wall with a great tremor. For a moment, he was worried about being found out. If Irving had not yet informed the templars of his mission and they came down here and saw the melted lock, they would most certainly assume the worst and come to kill them all.

"Let's hurry, someone would have heard that" he said, interrupting Jowan and Lily's celebratory dance.

A short flight of steps led from the archive to the phylactery chamber, and to the left they could see the warded door from earlier, except it shouldn't be warded from behind so they wouldn't have to go back around. No sooner had their feet hit the chamber floor than three more living statues attacked them. Sticking with the established strategy, Alim used his staff to knock them to the ground or keep them at a distance and his spirit sword to deal damage to them when he found an opening. Jowan and Lily could only stay back and support, Jowan couldn't cast spells as he had ran out of mana on the way here and he didn't trust Lily with any of the dropped weapons.

The enchanted suits were getting too close by using their superior numbers, so he changed his stance and dropped his staff, taking up hissword hilt in both hands before pouring more magic into his spirit blade hilt, lengthening and widening the blade until it resembled a greatsword. After destroying the two smaller suits, he focused his attention on the larger one.

This one was more of a challenge than all the others he had fought, it was the size of a qunari and had a tower shield to go with its greatsword. He parried its sword and knocked its shield to the side with a burst of energy and swung his spirit blade over his head only for the sentinel to bring up its sword in both hands to block. It stood up and gripped its greatsword with both hands and rushed him, and they had a furious duel in which he had the shawl of his robe cut off and his back was cut open before he managed to behead the thing.

He panted and leaned heavily against his staff as he dismissed his sword and applied healing magic to his back. The cut was long but not deep, from his right shoulder to his left hip. He sighed heavily, he was running low on mana after all this and the cut would definitely scar.

At least it was a clean cut, which meant that with proper treatment the scar left behind wouldn't be jagged and ugly.

To the right was a stone stairway up to a raised portion of the room, where multiple cabinets filled with glass phylacteries were. Waving Jowan and Lily up, the three ascended the stairs. Suddenly Jowan pointed to a simple container on a far shelf. "That's my phylactery!" He cried, running towards it. "You found it!" Smiling the apprentice grasped the container. "I can't believe this tiny vial stands between me and freedom" he muttered, staring. "So fragile, so easy just to be rid of its hold over me-" the vial seemed to slip through his fingers, shattering on the floor "-and I'm free.". The blood seeped into the cracks on the floor and slowly disappeared.

Alim found himself shuddering at the hissing noise Jowan's blood was making as it hit the cold air of the room.

"Let's get out of here." Jowan said, suddenly tired.

Even though their trial was over, guilt gnawed at Alim's heart. Jowan and Lily were going to face an opponent even worse than tranquility. And he would be the one to send them to their fate. His only friend...the worst betrayal.

Perhaps those who truly followed goodness always had to sacrifice... Alim prayed this would be the only time he would have to do something like this.

It was not until years later that he would realize how dreadfully wrong he was.

Sure enough, as they opened the door from the basement repository, Irving, Greagoir and a small contingent of templars were waiting. "An initiate, conspiring with a blood mage. I'm disappointed Lily." Greagoir muttered as he stepped forward. Alim could only turn away, and Jowan and Lily backed up in surprise and fear.

"She seems shocked but fully in control of her own mind. Not the thrall of a blood mage then... You were right Irving. The initiate has betrayed us. This will not go unpunished."

His gaze turned almost immediately to Alim. "And here's your lackey, who so efficiently delivered these miscreants into our hands. Your plan worked after all."

_'Lackey? As if I am incapable of doing anything on my own.'_

Jowan face flushed with shock. "You! Lily and I trusted you!" His voice shook with rage as he screamed at his friend. "How could you betray us like this?!" Alim jumped away, wincing as the newly formed scar tissue on his back was disturbed, backing towards Irving as the templars stepped forward.

Lily drew closer to Jowan. "We're trapped…"

"Enough." Greagoir commanded. "As Knight Commander of this Circle, I sentence this blood mage to death. This initiate has scorned the Chantry and her vows. Take her to Aeonar."

"The... The mages prison... no, not there... please..." Lily stuttered, clinging to Jowan as the templars drew closer around them.

"No! I won't let you touch her!" Jowan screamed, pushing Lily behind him. Without a moment's hesitation, he plunged a dagger into his hand. As the blood splattered himself and all around him, a wave of red magic knocked everyone but Lily to the floor, and everyone of them save for Alim, Irving, Greagoir and an female templar with blond hairwere knocked into unconsciousness. Lily gasped and turned to her lover, backing up slowly.

Alim was shocked at the display, he knew this would happen, but seeing it was something different entirely.

"By the Maker, blood magic..." she muttered at first then wailed. "How...how could you! You said you've never..."

Jowan turned to her, hand bleeding, pleading. "I admit...I dabbled. I thought it would make me a better mage..."

Alim gritted his teeth, he had lied to all of them!

Lily stopped, aghast. "Blood magic is evil Jowan. It corrupts people, changes them..."

"I'm going to give it up. Give up all magic...I just want to be with you Lily. Please, come with me."

"I trusted you. I was ready to sacrifice everything for you." Lily paused, tears running down her face. "I...I don't know you blood mage, get away from me!" Betrayed and shaken to his core, Jowan ran down the hall, and soon those knocked out by the spell were stumbling to their feet.

Alim sprung to his feet when he could move again, and as desperately as he wanted to chase down Jowan, he had see to his comrades first.

Alim ran to the First Enchanter's side, and soon the old man began to wake. Alim helped him to his feet as Irving spoke. "Are you all right? Where's Greagoir?"

The Knight-Commander was quickly at the First Enchanter's side, though he limped slightly. "I knew it…blood magic. But to overcome so many…I never thought him capable of such power."

Alim bit his lip, staring the way Jowan had run out. "He was lying after all." He knew he had done the right thing...but his blood still felt like poison in his veins.

Iriving leaned on Alim, quickly directing the mage to place healing spells on himself and the templars with what mana he had left. "None of us expected this." He said aloud. "Are you all right Greagoir?

Greagoir scoffed. "As good as can be expected given the circumstances! If you had let me act sooner, this would not have happened!"

"He can't have gone far." Alim muttered, glancing towards the tower's exit. "You could still capture him."

The templar glanced narrowly at him. "Believe me, we will use our every resource. Where is the girl?"

"I…I am here, ser." Lily squeaked from the corner.

"You helped a blood mage!" Greagoir growled. "Look at all he's hurt!"

"Knight-Commander I… I was wrong." Lily stuttered, and Alim did not try to defend her. "I was accomplice to a…blood mage. I will...accept whatever punishment you see fit. Even...even Aeonar."

"Get her out of my sight." The female templar quickly drug Lily away as the Kinght-Commander turned to Alim with a sour look. "And you. You were in a repository full of magics that are locked away for a reason."

Irving laid a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Did you take anything important from the repository?"

Alim shook his head, still in too dour a mood to say anything. Greagoir snorted "hmph. Some honesty at last. But your antics have made a mockery of this Circle! Ah…what are we to do with you?"

The new mage bowed his head. "Nothing ser, I was just doing as I was told." It seemed so much like Greagoir to let his temper get the better of him, now more than ever he wished the Circle governed itself.

The First Enchanter nodded. "As I said, he was working under my orders."

"And this improves the situation? The phylactery chamber is forbidden to all save you and me!"

"I had my reasons." Irving replied, crossing his arms.

"You're not all knowing Irving!" The Knight-Commander drew face to face with his old adversary. "You don't know how much influence the blood mage might have had. How are we to deal with this?!"

Suddenly a new voice joined the argument, and Alim turned to see Duncan. The Grey Warden smiled as the three turned to him. Indeed the Maker was smiling on the Wardens...

"Knight-Commander, if I may…I am not only looking for mages to join the king's army." He said softly. "I am also recruiting for the Grey Wardens. Irving spoke highly of this mage, and I would like him to join the Warden ranks."

Greagoir's face reached an unprecedented flushed level. "What? You've promised him a new Grey Warden?"

"Alim has served the Circle well." Irving replied, evading the question. "He would make an excellent Grey Warden."

Duncan nodded, and stood next to Alim, smiling slightly at the young man. "We look for dedication in our recruits. Fighting the darkspawn requires such dedication, often at the expense of all else."

 _'Even at the expense of friends and lovers,'_ he thought sadly.

"I object!" Greagoir cried, stepping closer to Duncan. "You say he operated under your instructions, Irving, but I do not trust him. I must investigate this issue, and I will not release this mage to the Grey Warden."

Alim turned to Irving. As much as becoming a Grey Warden was an honor, he could do so much more to benefit mages here. "But I am a mage, my place is here." He said softly, thinking of Leorah.

Irving placed his hand on the young student. "Thims tower is not the place for you. You have...a truly rare gift that must not be squandered."

Leaning in, he whispered. "Your time is just beginning. The Grey Wardens offer a chance for something more. Take it."

Alim turned away thoughtfully, he knew what Leorah would say in this situation, and as much as he would like to go to he for council, he knew that he did not have the time.

Duncan had turned his full attention to the stubborn Knight-Commander. "Greagoir, mages are needed. This mage is needed. Worse things plague this world than blood-mages, you know that. I will take this young mage under my wing and bear all responsibility for his actions." He held out his hand to seal the vow.

Greagoir muttered darkly, staring at Duncan's hand. "This mage does not deserve a place in the Order."

"Why? Do we not reward service? This mage has served the Circle well." Irving turned back to Alim. "You have an opportunity few even dream of, do not squander it."

Alim bowed. "You honor me... but am I to leave the tower forever?"

Irving sighed, "the tower never forgets it's apprentices, but the Grey Wardens shall be your family now. You are luckier than you know, child."

With a nod, Alim took a place at Duncan's side as the Grey Warden shook hands with a reluctant Greagoir. "Duncan, First Enchanter, may I gather my belongings and say my goodbyes?"

Duncan looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, and nodded "you may, but do not tarry for too long. We must be gone by sunset."

"Thank you Commander" he said, truthfully he did not care too much about his few belongings, but he did not wish to leave without saying goodbye to Leorah.

He went to the mage laboratory first to see her and explain everything.

* * *

Once all was said and done, the two sat across from each other in silence. "Oh Alim" she started, but didn't quite know what to say, so he simply closed the distance between them and kissed her passionately.

He almost pulled away on sheer reflex, so used to only being able to be intimate with her behind closed doors. But then he realized that as a gray warden recruit and not a circle mage he no longer needed to worry about getting caught.

When they separated, he leaned into her ear and whispered "I love you too."

Her eyes widened and teared up at his belated confession.

She jumped up onto still wobbly legs and grabbed him up into a tight embrace, where she could only cry bittersweet tears into his shoulder.

He smiled and set her back down into her chair.

After wishing her a heartfelt goodbye, and promising her he'd be back for her, he left to get his personal affects from his room.

Outside the door though, he met with Irving and Duncan, "Um..." he said intelligently, causing them to smile lightheartedly. "If I may, is there something wrong with that woman's legs?" Duncan asked, for he had seen many lose the ability in their legs either on the battlefield or off, so he was genuinely concerned for the older woman his newest recruit had an obvious romantic attachment to.

Alim blushed heavily and said "oh, that's really nothing you need to concern yourselves with. It'll wear off in a few..." He stammered, for he was still uncomfortable talking about these sorts of things, but stopped when Irving smiled mischievously and Duncan chuckled deviously.

He blushed in emberesment and anger and growled lightly in his throat when he fully realized that the two older men were simply having fun at his expense.

"Now then if you are finished with your goodbyes I must ask you to follow us, we have some things to give to you before you leave for your new life."

Alim looked up from the floor and followed them down the hall into his room. Once there he saw Irving handing him a beautiful silverite staff and a folded blue and grey uniform on his bed.

"This staff belonged to me when I was your age. In light of everything that has happened, I would like for you to have it" Irving said, handing him the staff.

"And this is to be your uniform in the grey warden ranks. We didn't have your exact measurements when they were made, so until we get to Ostagar you will have to survive with with ill fitting combat attire."

"Thank you First Enchanter, Commander."

"And with that, we shall leave you to prepare," they said as they walked quietly out of the room.

The first thing Alim did was strip out of his circle robe, not a hard task since the back was still torn wide open. He then sat himself down in front of his vanity mirror and removed a pair of small shears blade from the drawer.

His waist length hair was well suited to a life of a quiet scholar, not a life on the road. He cut off his braid at his shoulders, and when the rest of his hair came loose of its confines, he used the shears to shape it.

When he was finished, his hair was shoulder length and swept back in as neat a style as he could make it.

Next, he went to his bed and picked up his uniform to change into.

It began with dark blue shirt with a lighter blue portion at the front that fastened at the left side, and formfitting dark blue trousers. The gloves were elbow length and hardened brown leather with a lighter brown leather elbow guard extending out of them. The boots were knee length and hardened brown leather, same as the gloves, and similarly had lighter brown leather pads for his knees.

Wrapped around his waist was a sash-like garment that fastened in the front, and extended down in the back and ended like a tail-coat just above knee-level.

Wrapping around his shoulders was a dark blue shawl, like on his circle robes, but this one had a high, stiff collar and extended down into sleeves strapped to his arms and tucked into his gloves. The shawl had scale mail stitched into it and a griffon shaped plate was attached to the left shoulder.

Picking up his staff, he left his room and met with Duncan who promptly and silently exited the tower and made the journey across the lake to the docks. As they made their way down through the tower, whispers of the other mages and eerie slit-eyed stares of the templars, Alim knew there would always be a plus to living with the Wardens.

No templars


	5. Road to Ostagar

**Arcane Warrior**

**Chapter 4**

**Road to Ostagar**

* * *

It had been three days since they had departed from the tower and the capital city of Denerim could be seen as a silhouette on the horizon.

Duncan and Alim had been travelling on horseback day and night, only stopping to rest for short periods and to let the horses eat and drink some water.

Duncan sat in silence, studying the soup that was bubbling slightly over the fire. All Grey Wardens learned basic outdoor cooking, and soup was one of the most common meals because it was easy to make and had a lot of nutritional value, depending on the ingredients it was made with. It also gave the cook time to think; especially if they had done it so many times before that the process became automatic.

Thinking was what Duncan was doing right now, considering the new Warden recruit he had conscripted at the Circle Tower.

Duncan glanced up, studying the young elf named Alim Surana. Most recruits were taken in their twenties or thirties, but at first glance Alim didn't look to be a day over eighteen or nineteen. This was deceptive, of course. Elves always looked younger than they were, this was most likely a holdover from the days that they were immortal. However, it was his eyes that stuck out to him. They, different from the face around them, looked far too old.

That made sense, considering that Alim had barely escaped the mess at Kinloch Hold with his life and was smart enough to realize that that was the case.

_'No,'_ Duncan thought, carefully pulling the pot off the fire and setting it aside to cool for a moment. _'There is more far too it than that.'_ Alim's eyes had seemed too old from the moment he had first seen them, the young elf had just been better at hiding it at the time. Duncan supposed that he shouldn't be surprised, he had seen a similar look during his time with Fiona, an elven mage from Orlais who he had worked with when in his younger days.

Duncan had never entirely believed the Chantry's propaganda about magic. True, it could be dangerous if misused, but so could a sword, and there were far greater threats in the world than mages.

"Alim," Duncan called, pouring the soup into two smaller bowls. The young man glanced up, letting the small stone drop into his hand before he threw it to the side as he stood and came over to Duncan's fire. He thanked Duncan quietly as he took the bowl of soup. The silence extended for a moment before Duncan broke it.

"What were you doing over there?" he asked, referring to the stone. Alim glanced up, and it took him a moment before he realized what Duncan had meant.

"Oh, this?" he asked, telekinetically lifting the stone from the ground for a moment. Duncan nodded. "It's a magical exercise. It is designed to teach apprentices how to completely control their magic by using telekinesis to levitate small objects. I find it… calming. I have to focus so much on what I'm doing so that I don't have space in my mind to think."

"I was under the impression that levitation was relatively easy," Duncan said. Part of his interest was, in fact, curiosity. However, he also wanted to get a better insight for how Alim thought.

"Simple levitation, yes," Alim answered. "But levitating objects for long periods of time, levitating a sword and actually fighting with it as if you had a third limb, or even levitating oneself to give the illusion of flight, is more difficult. Especially that last exercise, I still haven't managed to succeed there, and I can't keep control of a levitated sword for more than a minute" He glanced up, studying Duncan. "Why do you ask?"

"It is my duty as Warden Commander to understand the people under my command," Duncan said. "This is especially important for recruits who have had… traumatic backgrounds."

"How does learning about Circle exercises help you understand me, ser?" Alim asked.

"It's not so much the exercise itself as how you use it," Duncan answered. "You seem to know a great deal about these particular exercises, indicating that you have been using them as calming exercises for quite a while. This along with your pointed comments to the First Enchanter, make me suspect that there is something that happened at, or before you arrived at, the tower that continues to affect you."

Alim's eyes widened as Duncan continued, "and, judging from the fact that Irving didn't mention anything to me, you haven't talked about whatever happened to anyone, and that despite circumstances being as they are, it is still being held in the strictest of confidences." Duncan paused, giving Alim a chance to respond. When he didn't, Duncan continued. "Please understand, Alim, now that you have joined the Grey Wardens, you must leave behind not only your previous attachments, but also your previous prejudices and quarrels. As a Grey Warden, you will be expected to work alongside many different people, even those who may have wronged you in the past.

"You cannot let your personal feelings get in the way of your duty, which is to defeat the Darkspawn and the Blight. Do you understand?" Alim nodded, perhaps slightly sullenly. Duncan let his voice soften, he had made his point "I know it's hard, Alim. After all, we are still mortal. Hopefully no situation arises that you will really need what I am telling you. Also, know that if you want to talk about your problems, myself and the other Grey Wardens are willing to listen, please do not hesitate to come to us if you ever want to talk.

You should know that a warrior free of burdens fights much better than one who carries such heavy burdens on his shoulders."

Alim studied Duncan for a moment before nodding again. "I'll consider what you said, commander." Duncan smiled slightly, not the best response he could have gotten, but much better than the usual one.

"Good, and please just call me Duncan."

"But, you are my superior. I could understand when I was still a Circle mage, you had no authority over me at that point, but now I follow your orders."

"That is true, but I have always preferred not to be called as such. It makes me feel old." Alim raised an eyebrow slightly, but smiled and agreed. They ate in silence for a few minutes before Alim's mind started to wander.

* * *

**_Flashback_ **

_Alim sat across from Leorah and sighed, he had just finished explaining to her the situation with Jowan and Irving, and that he was to leave the tower to become a warden, and he was worried about her response._

_Would she lash out at him, angry that he had lied to her, and used her, in a way, to complete the task Irving had given him? Or would she praise him for completing his first and last official task as a circle mage and managed to become a warden?_

_He didn't know, and her silence was eating at him. "Oh Alim" she started, but didn't quite know what to say, so he simply closed the distance between them and kissed her passionately._

_Now that he was a gray warden recruit and not a circle mage he no longer needed to worry about getting caught._

_When they separated, he leaned into her ear and whispered "I love you too."_

_Her eyes widened and teared up at his belated confession._

_He smiled at her warmly "I'll come back for you, I promise" he whispered, but she simply shook her head. "No Alim, you may come back, but not to me. You are a Gray Warden now, but I am still a mage of the circle._

_"Even before all this I knew things between us couldn't last." He shook his head, "we could-" he started, but she halted his denial with a finger to his lips "-no. I love you, but there's a whole world out there just waiting and begging to be explored, but you and I both know that that world isn't for me."_

_Alim's eyes softened, she was right and he knew it. "You don't belong to me anymore" she said starting to tear up, "I..." she sniffed and jumped up onto still wobbly legs and grabbed him up into a tight embrace, where she could only cry bittersweet tears into his shoulder._

_"Now go..." she said, her words muffled by his shoulder, "and be the best gray warden you can be."_

_He could only nod, trying too hard to hold back his own tears to say anything._

_He no longer wanted to leave, no longer wanted to leave her, but he knew that duty compelled him to, and it was his duty that told him he couldn't come back for her._

_He told himself that when this was all over, he would try with everything that was in him to find a way around 'duty', he would do everything he could to see her happy again._

_**End Flashback** _

* * *

"Duncan, didn't you say that Ostagar was where the Darkspawn were attacking?" Duncan nodded.

"Yes, but we have to pick something up from Denerim before we go. It won't take long, and the fighting has not yet begun at Ostagar. That being said, we should not dawdle, either."

"What are we picking up?" Duncan shook his head slightly.

"Just something for your Joining. I'm afraid I cannot reveal what it is just yet." Alim opened his mouth, but Duncan interrupted. "Nor can I explain what the Joining is just yet. You'll find out soon enough."

Alim was curious, but knew it was better to curb his tongue, so he remained silent and finished his soup.

Once done, they put their supplies away in their packs and climbed onto the horses that Duncan had rented from the stable at the Lake Calenhad dock and rode off along the side of the imperial highway.

* * *

_'It's been so long since I was last here,'_ Alim thought to himself as he and Duncan entered Denerim.

The Chantry in this city had been where he was initially taken after his magic was discovered, before being taken to the Tower.

Duncan lead the way through the crowded market, ignoring the many cries of merchants hawking their wares and the babble of shoppers moving between stalls, considering items and haggling with the shopkeepers. Alim followed closely behind, keeping an eye out for the pickpockets and cutpurses he knew haunted the area.

Heading away from the rush of the crowds and towards a line of houses just off the market, Duncan quietly slipped into an alley and made a few turns before arriving at an old warehouse.

Alim tried to keep track of where Duncan led him in his head, if he wasn't careful he would have easily lost track and would've never been able to find this warehouse again.

"Stay here for the moment. I'll be out before too long." With that, he entered the warehouse. Alim, meanwhile, leaned back against the wall

"Hey knife-ear!" called a sneering voice, "what are you doing out of your dump." Alim glanced up, narrowing his eyes at the sight of three human men approaching from another alley. All three looked rough, none of them seemed to be well armed but probably had knives stashed away in their loose clothes from the roguish look of them. No armor, just dirty clothes.

All in all, he didn't know what chance he stood if it came to a fight, he clearly had more protection than any of them, but who knew what they were capable of or if there were more of them watching on from the shadows. Alim gripped his staff harder with his right hand and and grabbed the spirit blade hilt hooked to his belt with his left.

"Yeah," another of the men snickered, approaching Alim and pointed his trudgeon at him "this here alley is too good for the likes of you." Alim raised his eyebrow, wondering at the intelligence of this group of humans, that they would ignore the obvious uniform bearing the gray warden crest in favor of simply seeing his ears.

The three had formed a half circle and the man in front was invading Alim's personal space.

"Gentlemen" Alim said sardonically, "I would not recommend annoying me. In case your tiny brains cannot piece together the meaning of my uniform and my staff, I feel I must inform you that I am a mage, and gray warden at that.

"I will not hesitate to act if you throw the first blow, but not until then. So I suggest that you leave me in peace."

Truthfully he wanted nothing more than to kick their teeth in, both for him and for every other elf they had harassed, and maybe even more. He wouldn't put physical assault or rape past them.

But he had to hold himself back as he remembered Duncan's words. He might have to one day rely on these men to watch his back, so he couldn't afford to antagonize them now, no matter how much he might have wished otherwise.

The first man snorted, though Alim noticed a spark of fear in his eyes at the insinuation that he was biting off more than he could chew, but he kept up his bravado in front of his companions. "Even if you are one of those freaks, we still have you cornered. Now I recommend that you give those cloths to whatever warden you stole them from, apologize to your betters and get back to the Alienage before we lose our tempers."

Alim rolled his eyes, he had to prevent himself from antagonizing them further when the thug to the leaders right said "dirty little knife-ear thinks he can talk to us like that, and pretending to be a warden no less. The nerve..."

He didn't particularly mind the insult, but it made him pay closer attention to him if nothing else. He was Leorah's age, but looked far older from all the stress lines and the grey balding hair, and he had a scar stretching from just above his right ear to the left side of his jaw.

The scar itself was the only thing that stood out as unusual on the man or his companions. It cut his face cleanly in half, adding an air of distinction to his otherwise ordinary face.

A scar that he recognized, clear as day. His eyes widened as the scar resonated in his mind and made him remember that day, the day before he awoke in the circle tower.

"You!" He cried out in a sudden fury, stomping forward and pointing his staff at him menacingly, the tip now crackling with a malicious sort of power and causing the three of them to back away in fear.

He could clearly see a glint of recognition in the man's eyes at being singled out by the elf. Alim growled, he must have accosted many elves since that day, but he hoped he stood out in the man's memory. Dark skin and silver hair were not a very common combination after all.

"Is there a problem here gentlemen?" Duncan said as he exited the warehouse. The three started, staring at the armed and armored man that had suddenly appeared. Alim, meanwhile, lowered his staff and reined in his rage at seeing that man again.

"No problem, ser," the man with the scar said, worried that the elf would rat him out to the authorities. "This little knife ear was just giving us some lip, we'll deal with him."

"I think not" Duncan said coldly, "you see, I am a Grey Warden and this is my newest recruit. Now I ask you kindly to leave us be."

Two of the ruffians seemed inclined to follow Duncan's instructions. The scarred man, however, because of either stupidity or a misguided belief in his own superiority, stayed put. "I feel sorry for you Grey Wardens if a murderous knife ear is the best you can get. I'd be doing you a favor if I killed it."

Alim had had enough. With a hiss of rage, he let go of the hilt of his sword and thrust out his open palm, throwing all three men away from him in a wave of telekinetic energy. The two "smart" ones got the message, and fled. The third let out a roar of rage and sprang to his feet and drew a large knife out of his sleeve. Alim raised his hands, fire licking at his fingers.

Behind and to the side of him, Duncan raised his eyebrow at the sight. Irving had told him that young Surana had no talent in elemental magic. He had however heard that demons of rage were made of pure fire...

"Come one step nearer, and I swear I'll kill you, you son of a bitch." Alim growled furiously. The man looked like he was seriously considering doing just that but was ultimately too proud to run from an elf, so Alim turned to Duncan and swallowed his pride.

If he wanted to keep to the Grey Warden ideals, he would have to move to take the matter out of his hands if he wanted to see that bastard punished for what he did.

He really wanted to kill the man who's name he refused to utter, even in his own thoughts lest he unintentionally put some curse on him out of sheer hatred, but he knew that the wardens didn't need any more enemies with their already tumultuous position in Ferelden.

"Duncan, that man... we must take him to the guards." Duncan rose an eyebrow at the recruits request, but that 'murderous' comment had peaked his curiousity. "Why is it you wish this? I don't believe I was in that warehouse long enough for him to have done anything truly unforgivable to you."

"I-" he started, but had to swallow the lump in his throat "-it has to do with what you asked me at camp. I can't say anymore, I'm... I'm too furious, and he'd probably just get off on hearing about it."

Duncan furrowed his brows in thought, but upon looking at the man he thought that he did recognize him from somewhere, or at least heard of someone bearing such a distinctive scar.

Saying nothing, Duncan picked up the man by the arm and handily disarmed him before pulling him along to the guard captain, ignoring his struggles and shouts of protest. After some words exchanged between the two, the guard captain spat in disgust and ordered the man carted off to Fort Drakon.

He could only smile smugly, knowing that the man had finally gotten what was coming to him. The guards at Fort Drakon were not exactly kind to their prisoners.

"Let's go, Alim." Duncan said quietly, leading Alim away from the marketplace. They walked in silence for a time, in case the other two men decided to ambush them. Eventually, however, Duncan spoke. "I feel there's a story behind your actions. Would you like to talk about it? Why you were so angry at that man?"

"…Sure. Now that he's finally facing punishment for what he's done, I feel I can finally talk about it. It has to do with how I was sent to the Circle…"

* * *

**_Flashback_ **

_Alim, seven years old, slipped silently through the cornfields of Lothering near the house his family stayed in. He looked slowly around, as if searching for something, or perhaps someone._

_"Got ya!" a girl squealed from behind him and he was tackled to the ground. He struggled for a moment, but found he couldn't get away without hurting the person holding him._

_"Ok, you win Ahlam" he groaned and she rolled off of him. He looked over at his cousin, a cute six year old with similar features to himself. He dusted himself off as she giggled._

_"How many times have I beat you again?" she asked coyly with a mischievous grin only a six year old girl could pull off and Alim tried to glare at her, but started chuckling, unable to stay mad at her for very long._

_"I've lost count too, I blame your mum" Afya Surana was Ahlam's mother and Alim's aunt. The woman was a talented warrior, having married one of the town's templars and he then taught her all he knew so she could defend herself, and she seemed determined to teach Ahlam and Alim to be the same, but it was clear to all that Ahlam was the more talented of the two._

_Ser Bryant would olways tell him that girls were earlier bloomers than boys, but he wasn't certain if that made him feel better or not._

_"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" a cold adult voice said. Both Alim and Ahlam turned, spotting a group of humans standing casually around. Alim slowly pushed Ahlam behind him, never letting his eyes leave the smirking human leading the group._

_"It looks like a couple of rats have wandered out of their hole." He turned slightly, grinning to his comrades. "What do you boys say? Up for a bit of sport?"_

_"Run!" Alim hissed and the shivering Ahlam nodded, taking off toward their house. It was their hope that if these men recognized the home of a well reknowned templar they would quit the chase. But it seemed unlikely as they could still hear the sound of the ruffians chasing them through the field even still. Alim and Ahlam knew this area well enough to duck and dodge around the farmhouses that dotted the place, having played tag quiet often in this area._

_However, their short legs simply could not match those of the fully-grown humans. Alim desperately pushed forward, hoping against hope that some miracle would save them._

_There was a flash of flying metal, and one of the hunters fell, a throwing knife sticking out of his leg. At the end of the alley stood Afya, fury etched into every line of her face and her long silver hair gleaming in the afternoon sun. Drawing her arming sword and kite shield, she advanced._

_"GET AWAY FROM MY BABIES YOU BASTARDS!" she yelled, driving the humans back with the sheer force of her will. Alim and Ahlam quickly took refuge in their house._

_They huddled in a corner and clung tightly to each other, trying to drown out the sounds of battle coming from outside._

_As skilled a warrior as Afya was, there were just too many of them. She managed to take down most of them, but in the end three of them managed to overwhelm her._

_The two children screamed when the door was blown open and Afya, bloody and whimpering in pain, was thrown through. The men limped through the doorway and picked up the whimpering form of Afya "it's time we showed you your place, you knife-eared bitch!"_

_"MOMMY!" Ahlam wailed, rushing forward to her mother. Alim could only stare_ 'no… no this can't be happening.'

_The men caught the girl and restrained her "the kids come to" the leader said, and his followers thoughtlessly complied. One of them carried the whimpering Afya up the stairs, one of them carried a struggling Ahlam, and the leader saw to him personally._

_He struggled and tried to bite the man as he grabbed him by his hair and pulled him up the stairs. He could only cry as they passed two ajar doorways, through which he could hear Afya and Ahlam's screams._

_The man threw open the door of threw him in against the bed. He turned and slammed the door behind him, and Alim was rattled by the action, which caused the silver chain necklace with a Chantry sunburst pendant around his neck to fall off. Shakily he reached for it, clasping it between his small hands before he was pulled from the bed. The large man forced him to his knees, face pushed roughly against the sheets._

_Alim was roughly stripped by the bandit leader, his clothing torn roughly away from his small form. Against his will his body knelt compliantly, grasping his Chantry pendant like a lifeline and desperately praying for salvation._

_"Turn, boy," said the man, his tone leaving no room for interjection._

_His eyes narrowed as Alim felt a shiver run though his body. He stifled the urge to cover himself as he turned on both knees, hands clasped around his back. The youth averted his eyes when he saw that the man had dropped his pants, grinning at the elflings defianc perversely._

_Deep chuckles could be heard with the shuffle of feet, forcing Alim to look up at his captor._

_"Open your mouth," he said._

'No... I don't want to...no...' _Alim complied despite himself, parting his lips. His mouth was stretched open as sweaty mass of flesh entered, tongue burning with a sour taste. His throat closed as he gagged on the mass, saliva collecting on the sides of his mouth._

_"Gagging already? Heh...Don't worry. You'll learn to satisfy me properly in time, slave" the voice was coated with honey, but it hardly masked the true nature of the words._

'No, I want to do this. I won't!' _Fingers cradled the pendant gently as Alim thought out a fervent prayer. Once finished he opened his jaw as wide as it would go, clamping down on the object as hard as possible after._

_The events to follow were pure agony and hysteria. Alim eventually found himself face down on the bed, enduring immense physical punishment. His skin burned from the lashes as he strove to remain still, waiting out the pain._

_"You will learn to obey me!" The man whipped him over and over, punctuating each word with a stinging lash from his studded belt._

_Alim cried, quieting any sniffles that collected in the back of his throat._ 'Maker... oh please Maker. Please...'

_The punishment ended as his grip loosened on the pendant. He thanked the Lord, believing that he was safe for now. But such bliss was short-lived as the unbearable urge to vomit rose within him. Alim's body froze, his spine protesting against the mass pressing against his insides._

_His body ached all over, protesting against every sensation flooding his veins._

'Maker no...no please. Don't let this happen to me. Why me? Why?!'

'But wait...' _there was still the Maker. The Maker was there, hearing his silent screams._

'Maker...' _thought Alim, clutching the disc in both hands._ 'Maker please...grant me one wish...'

_He pleaded silently with the Lord, he pleaded for all this to end. That he would awaken from this nightmare and he would go play with Ahlam while Afya and Ser Bryant watched from the porch._

_An unfamiliar emotion began to fill him up at the unceasing agony coming from his backside, an emotion directed at the pain he felt for causing him such distress, at the man and his followers in the other rooms for destroying his life, at the Maker himself for ignoring his prayers and letting this happen._

_Hate._

_He never felt true hatred before, childish anger certainly, but never this. His hatred began to grow, he felt something begin to awaken and move within him. Something... warm and welcoming, something that promised to stop this._

_He gave in to that feeling, and it began to grow inside him till he felt as if he were about to burst!_

_The man convulsed above him suddenly, and his eyes widened as he felt a white hot liquid erupt into his bowels with such force as to make his eyes pop._

_That was the lest straw, as the feeling inside him burst forth from his body bathing the entire house in a purple glow._

_"DAMN YOU ALL!" he screamed, and suddenly the ground around the house began to tremble before it started to shake as if an earthquake was assailing the small area of farmland, water began to burst from the well near the house like a geyser, all around the village the trees began to lean heavily as an iinvisible force caused the with to blow in a fierce gale._

_His eyes glowed a pure and furious white with the light of the heart of the fade and he squeezed his amulet so hard that it shattered._

_"What the fuck… this kid's a mage!" the man shouted, backing away. Alim walked menacingly out of the room after him, the act of god that he had conjured lashing out at anyone who approached his cousin and aunt, staying away from them and sparing them further pain. He heard human screams of pain in the chaos of the magic storm, and he smiled in sadistic glee at the sound. These evil people should suffer for taking his aunt from him and for hurting his baby cousin!_

_An almost inaudible shaking and metalic scraping sound came from the basement which where his aunt kept her weapon collection. They reacted to the magic field he had summoned and burst through the floor and surrounded him in a whirlwind of steel._

_One of the swords reacted to his anger at his rapist and flashed forward to cut him across the face. The man fell to the ground in pain and glared at him through the haze of his own blood._

_Alim smiled sadistically once again and moved to kill the man, but he simply didn't have the stamina to keep it all going. Before too long his sight started to dim and he slowly collapsed to his knees, still trying to strike out at the humans but simply not having the strength to do it. He watched the murderers flee, his cousin crying and shaking Afya's lifeless body, and in through the door ran Bryant._

_Just Bryant, he was no longer Ser. The Maker had abandoned him to his torment, and he no longer believed._

_It didn't help that the templars, the Maker's 'instruments of divine justice' were too late to stop any of this from happening._

_The knight looked around in shock, anger and sadness around him at what had happened before walking over to crouch beside Alim._

_"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I should've been here sooner. I never thought this would happen. I'll take you to people who will look after you, and I'll make sure Ahlam gets the treatment she needs and Afya..." He lifted Alim up as the boy slipped into unconsciousness, hearing no more._

_**Flashback End** _

* * *

"… After that, I woke up at the Tower. I later learned that that man had gotten away from punishment by claiming that he was innocent, and that it was all just an uncontrolled burst of accidental magic from an elven child." Alim finished. He and Duncan had left the city, and were heading south on the old Imperial Highway to Ostagar. Duncan was silent, his gaze haunted.

"Of course he got away with it. I was just an elf child, a mageling no less, and he was a human. Of course the authorities took his story at face value instead of investigating. That was also the day I stopped respecting the chantry, of course the things the people at the tower did to us mages didn't help with that."

He was startled out of his spiteful musings when he felt a hand on his shoulder, he looked over to see that Duncan was giving him a reassuring look. He stopped talking and looked down to his horse's neck.

Duncan and Alim continued their journey silently, each lost in their own thoughts.

* * *

Almost a week later, with Ostagar a not too far now, Alim awoke to the sensation of Duncan shaking him by the shoulder.

"Duncan-"

The older Warden silenced him abruptly, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "The camp is in danger and we are about to be attacked. I need you to stand watch over the horses. If I am to fall, you are to ride to Ostagar with all haste and inform the other Wardens of what has transpired. Do as I say!"

Heeding Duncan's words, Alim quickly took up his staff, heart pounding with tension. He would have liked to eat something before any fighting was to be done, but the urgency of the Commander's tone suggested that there was simply no time. Drawing forth his longsword, Duncan covered it in ashes from the fire pit to dull the shine of the blade. "I'll be back shortly. Stay quiet, and stay safe."

Alim stood next to the horses after Duncan had stealthily crept into the brush, forcing himself to breath slowly and stretch out his limbs in preparation for battle. Until his recruitment, he had never been outside of the Tower's walls, so the sights and sounds of the countryside were largely alien and unfamiliar, particularly after nightfall, where darkness and weariness worked to befuddle the mind.

For the first few nights, everything was a source of peril; the wind whistling through the trees became bounty hunters and templars intent on slaying him, the rustling of small animals through the undergrowth became darkspawn, ready to pounce. Time had taken the edge off, but now, roused from slumber and facing peril, the fear returned.

He now understood how dwarves coming to the surface for the first time felt, going barefoot and gripping the ground with their feet out of fear that they would fall into the sky, jumping at every unfamiliar sound thinking it was some alien threat.

Blood pounding in his ears, Alim willed himself to calm as he peered into the night. The fire had long gone cold, but his elven eyes saw in the dark well enough and he could see neither hair nor hide of an enemy. Refusing to relax his vigilance, the elf considered how Duncan, with his lesser senses, could have known of a foe's presence when he did not.

Simple experience? Had he been so weary as to be oblivious to the world around him, even in sleep?

Then he caught the smell; a rank, vile odor, the combination of rotting meat and vomit. An instant later, Alim heard limping footsteps on fallen leaves, a thick gurgling cough, broken only by deranged mutterings as the figure staggered into the clearing.

It was a human, a farmer by the looks of him, his practical garb soiled with dirt and blood. A chill ran up Alim's spine as he saw the newcomer's face; pale white with black veins pushed against the skin, blotchy and pallid and covered with weeping sores. Tainted yellow eyes stared in the elf's direction, while blackened saliva ran down his jaw to stain the grass. "It's so beautiful," he muttered, raising arms covered in lesions. "It's so wonderful to hear…"

"Who are you, ser? What's wrong?" Alim asked, activating his blade and holding it in a defensive stance. This man was very, very sick, and as much as he wanted to give aid, Duncan's warning was fresh on his mind.

"It's the song!" ranted the human, coughing forth a fresh batch of saliva. "I hear so much now, I understand everything! The whole world, united in song! It will be beautiful!"

"What song?" demanded Alim. Behind him, the horses whinnied in fright. "I have some medicines that might help you ser, but you need to stay right where you are." For all of his bravado, he had never killed anyone before, ghoul or no, for it was clear that was what this man was. The thought of doing such, even to a ghoul, made his stomach turn.

"You do not understand, you do not listen!" barked the pitiable creature. A chunk of hair fell from his skull, and he shambled forward, reaching behind his back. "But I will make you listen."

The knife emerged, a crude, rusted thing, blade sodden with blood, both red and black. "Stay back," Alim warned, aghast at the sight. Had Duncan fallen, silent and unnoticed in the darkness?

"This is your last warning. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. Stand down."

The vile stench accompanying the stranger increased many-fold, and Alim turned to see a half-dozen more emerge from the night to surround him; men and women, all bearing the same sickness. "We will make you listen," the first snarled, rushing forward headlong. "Listen listen listen listen listen listen listen LISTEN!"

The blow was poorly directed, a mad slash that Alim quickly dodged before running the assailant through with his sword before he kicked him off the blade. But then the others were upon him, lashing out with shovels and pitchforks and blacksmith's hammers, frenzied, wild, driven insane, completely unconcerned with self-preservation. They were beyond reason, beyond saving.

Only one course of action left.

Alim met their advance, sweeping his staff and knocking a few to their backs, twirling the blade and driving it into one. Shockingly, the madman seized the guard and pinned the sword into his own body. Alim fought to retrieve it but the foe had a strength that was utterly unnatural for someone so sick and mortally wounded. The third of their number lunged for the elf, hands closing around his neck.

"You will listen!"

Gasping for each breath, the air now rank with their rot, Alim dropped the staff and punched his assailant straight in the mouth, once, twice, thrice, sending him spinning away, spitting black blood.

He was too shocked by the sudden and horrifying situation to even think to use his magic.

But there was more, always more, swarming him, burying him under the weight of numbers, the night split with the sounds of their insane ranting, the screams of the horses and the elf's cries of defiance. His blade fell to the ground here it dispersed and his belt knife shone for a moment before he plunged it into a foe's heart, and he was dimly aware that whatever ague had affected them so might be contagious…

One momemt he found his back pressed against the ground as his enemies bore down on him, biting and claing at his clothes and flesh, but the next moment all the pressure suddenly lifted as Duncan appeared, left hand ripping one of the attackers off him while the longsword in his right impaled the lunatic. The remaining three abandoned Alim and launched themselves at the older Warden but Duncan was too fast, and three severed heads fell to the ground. "Are you alright?" Duncan asked, pulling Alim to his feet. "Have you suffered any wounds? Did any of their blood enter your mouth, anything of that nature?"

"No, I don't think so," Alim replied, quickly running his hands over his body to check. His body was covered in bites and scratches, but through some miracle none of the ghouls had managed to break his skin or clothing. But then it dawned on him that he was not wearing his gloves or boots, not having had the time to put them on when he awoke. There was a long jagged cut on his palm that would surely scar, but the more pressing concern was the black blood seeping from it. Thinking back, the ghoul who grabbed his sword must have done it when he was focused on beating back the one at his throat.

"I owe you my life, but this... I think youre efforts might have been in vain" he said, showing his hand to Duncan.

He was going to die... He was going to turn into one of those freaks and then he was going to die.

"This looks serious, but fortunately I know of a cure."

"What is the cure?" Alim asked, but Duncan simply turned away.

"You are to be a Warden, Alim Surana," Duncan replied, striding over to the final attacker who was still lying on the ground and spitting out broken teeth. Rearing up, he made to attack, only to be cut down with a quick slash. Duncan, the elf noted, was fairly splattered with the ink-black blood of their attackers, but seemed to pay it no heed, making him think that perhaps the gray wardens must have some level of immunity, and it became apparent to him what the cure was. It seemed there had been more out there, all of which Duncan had dispatched. "The Wardens look after their own."

"What in the Andraste's name was wrong with them? They were utterly out of their minds!"

"Ghouls," Duncan explained _'so it really is as I thought then'_ he thought sourly. "Men and women infected with the darkspawn taint. It strips them of their reason, their sanity, everything but the will to serve their dark masters. There should not have been any this far north…"

"Could something have happened to the forces at Ostagar, then?"

"Unlikely. If they were either destroyed or forced to retreat, then we would know. There is only one truly efficient route for the horde to take in order to enter Ferelden from the Wilds, but there are passes acceptable for small bands such as this. We should be cautious."

"Agreed," said Alim, suppressing a shudder of fear at what would happen to him if they delayed. "We should leave this place immediately, in case more arrive."

"Yes" Alim muttered, calming the horses before throwing his things together. Within minutes, they were gone, speeding into the darkness as safely as they could manage, the blood and bodies of the ghouls the only signs of their passing.

* * *

They crested a small hill three days later, and Alim finally laid eyes upon the ruined fortress of Ostagar for the first, but certainly not the last time.

A thousand years earlier, the Tevinter Imperium had stretched across the boundaries of the known world, an empire fueled by dark magic and slavery, commanded by the twisted magisters. The Imperium had advanced in every direction, seeking new lands to conquer and resources to exploit, before eventually finding their way to the edge of the Korcari Wilds, a strange and inhospitable wilderness at the suthern edge of Thedas.

Even for the Tevinters, with their endless hunger for land, slaves and blood, the idea of conquering the Wilds ultimately proved to be unfeasible. The land was too harsh, too distant from the Imperium's settled territories, and the cold swamps and forests provided little of material value. Moreover, the Chasind Wilders that dwelt within paradoxically seemed to be both too scattered and few to make the Imperium's slave trade profitable, while at the same point being able to unify into considerable hosts to bedevil the northern invaders.

And so, the unstoppable Tevinter war machine halted their southwards advance, and to shield themselves from the Wilders, erected the fortress of Ostagar. Built high upon the cliffs overlooking the Wilds, Ostagar had repelled numerous Chasind assaults during the Imperium's reign, and had never been breached or captured by the enemies of Tevinter.

Of course, it was eventually all for naught. The First Blight had destroyed much of the Imperium over the course of nearly two hundred years, weakening its hold over the outlying territories. Andraste's Exalted March had nearly finished the job, forcing the Imperium to abandon southern Thedas before the Prophet's betrayal at the hands of her mortal husband Maferath. Ostagar had been vacated and left to rot, but even time and neglect could not bring it down.

The sight of the old fortress was breathtaking, and Alim allowed himself a moment to stare in wonder. Ostagar had been built to protect a narrow pass that led into the fertile heartland of what was now Ferelden, and he was stunned by the sheer hundred-foot walls that covered the gorge and by the numerous old towers built along the ramparts, one in particular along the eastern side of the fortress reaching several hundred feet, almost as tall as Kinloch Hold. Looking upon the old ruins, Alim suddenly felt small in the face of it.

Even a thousand years later, the fortress still held up considerably well. The craftsmanship abilities of dwarves were truly something to be respected.

"How big exactly is the army?"

"Just over ten thousand men," Duncan answered. "A considerable host, but not as large as it could be. When I left King Cailan at the assembly point, many of Ferelden's nobility had yet to commit their forces. I can only hope since the following battles, additional reinforcements have arrived to bolster our numbers."

"You mean they've already engaged the darkspawn?"

"Three times prior, and after each battle the darkspawn simply retreated into the Wilds to bolster their numbers with reinforcements emerging from the Deep Roads. By now, they look to outnumber us significantly."

"Will the forces we have be enough to stop the darkspawn? If nothing else, Ostagar looks like it can be defended."

"I do not know if our numbers are sufficient, but you are correct in your assessment of our defenses. Even a thousand years later, Ostagar is a bastion to be respected. It must be, if we are to stop the Blight."

"And what if we can't hold them here, Duncan?" Alim asked. "If the fortress is breached, then what?"

"Then Ferelden will fall," the elder Warden intoned gravely.

Leading their horses on, the two Wardens dismounted at an impromptu bastion on the eastern edge of the fortress meant to watch for threats coming along the road. The horses left in the hands of trained grooms and a report made about their recent nighttime ambush, they made their way beneath the shadow of the largest tower, a massive edifice that overlooked the entire fortress and the lands around it. "This area of the fortress has been designated as the King's Camp. The bulk of the army, along with the full-fledged members of the Order, are encamped in the valley below."

The elf's eyes widened. "The King's Camp? You mean-"

"Ho, there! Duncan!" came the enthusiastic boom, and Alim turned to witness the speaker approach, accompanied by a quartet of knights in full plate, the human's massive golden armour, silver greatsword and long blonde hair shining in the sun. For a moment, the elf froze in utter disbelief.

"King Cailan," Duncan greeted the newcomer, giving a small bow. "I didn't expect-"

"A royal welcome?" the King of Ferelden quipped, placing a friendly hand on Duncan's shoulder. He was a young man in the prime of life, perhaps about twenty-five years of age, a bear of a man standing at 6'2"-6'3", vigorous and well-built, with a confident demeanor and a lust for life.

He was the heir of Maric the Savior and a scion of Calenhad the Silver Knight's bloodline, inheriting the land that his father had liberated from the yoke of the Orlesian Empire and restored to its former glory; yet if he felt the weight of all that history and the shadow of his lineage, he gave no sign of it.

For better or for worse, Cailan was not an elder statesman or a peerless diplomat, but a fighting king, a man far more comfortable drinking with and warring alongside his soldiers than politicking with domestic nobles and foreign dignitaries. Alim felt respect for the man already.

"I was beginning to think you'd miss all the fun!"

"Not if I could help it, Your Majesty," came the wry reply.

"Then I'll have the mighty Duncan at my side in battle after all. Glorious!" Cailan crowed. "The other Wardens told me you found a promising recruit. I take it this is he?"

"Indeed, Your Majesty. Allow me to introduce-"

The King gave a small snort of derision. "There's no need to be so formal, Duncan, we are to be riding into battle together, after all." Walking over, Cailan enthusiastically shook Alim's hand as if they were two old comrades finding each other again, and not a King and the lowest of his subjects. "Ho there, friend, might I know your name?"

"I am Alim Surana Your Majesty, of the circle of magi Kinloch Hold" said the elf. In ordinary circumstances, he might have considered bowing, but Cailan didn't appear to be particularly overly concerned with courtly formality.

"Pleased to meet you. The gray wardens are desperate to bolster their ranks, and I for one, am happy to help them. You said you are from the circle, I trust you have some spells to help us in the upcoming battle?"

"I will do my best of course, Your Majesty."

"Excellent, we have too few mages here and another is always welcome." Once again the large man extended his hand, and Alim reached out to shake it.

"Allow me to be the first to officially welcome you to Ostagar Alim. The wardens will benefit greatly with you in their ranks." He smiled widely at his king's praise.

"What is the status of the army, Your Majesty?" asked Duncan, eager to get down to business. "Have any more nobles committed their troops?"

"Troops from Highever have arrived, at long last," Cailan answered. "About a hundred men under Bryce's son Fergus arrived about a week ago. I put them to work as part of the scouting teams."

"But Teryn Cousland himself has not come?" Duncan inquired.

"No, he hasn't, and neither have the troops from Amaranthine. It's very strange; young Fergus told me that his father and Arl Howe would be no more than a day or two behind him." The King gave a shrug, as if the absence of two of his more notable vassals was a triviality. "Then again, the Coastlands are rather stormy this time of year, perhaps the weather delayed them? I'm sure they'll arrive eventually, but as it stands, I don't think we'll need any more men, not with how swimmingly the battles have been going."

"Your uncle sends his greetings, and reminds you that Redcliffe forces could be here in less than a week."

"Ha! Eamon just wants in on the glory," Cailan remarked mockingly, rolling his blue eyes. "We've won three battles against these monsters already, and the next should be no different. We've been tracking the horde's advance through the Wilds, so by the time they approach the fortress, we'll be ready to send them scurrying back into their holes."

"You sound very confident of that, Your Majesty," Alim remarked evenly. The King seemed entirely at ease about the impending darkspawn onslaught, and the elf had no idea if Cailan was simply putting on a carefree front for the sake of morale, or he truly believed the Blight was no challenge to his forces.

For the sake of Ferelden, he hoped it was the former.

"Overconfident some would say, right, Duncan?" Cailan jested.

Duncan maintained a diplomatic, cautious tone in the face of Cailan's self-assurance. "Your Majesty, I'm not certain the Blight can be ended as quickly as you might wish."

"To be honest, I'm not even sure this is a true Blight. There have been plenty of darkspawn on the field, but alas, no sign of an Archdemon."

"Disappointed, Your Majesty?" Duncan inquired wryly.

"I'd hoped for a war like in the tales! A king riding into battle with the fabled Grey Wardens against a tainted god. But I suppose this will have to do."

"We should return to your tent, Your Majesty," one of Cailan's bodyguards said, a heavyset man with greying hair. "Most likely Teryn Loghain will wish to review our strategies."

"Yes, Elric, of course. Sorry to cut this short, but I must return before Loghain sends out a search party," Cailan sighed in frustration. "Farewell, Grey Wardens."

As the King departed, Alim let out a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding. "Well, that was unexpected."

"To an extent," Duncan explained. "King Cailan is a major ally of the Wardens in Ferelden, and is one of our strongest advocates, especially with the Blight at our doorstep. And what he says is true; they've won several battles against the darkspawn so far."

Alim caught the elder Warden's worried tone. "But at first glance, he seems to be taking it rather lightly." Duncan gestured for them to start walking into the camp, and he compliantly followed his commander.

"His glibness stems in no small part from our presence. He believes that our legend alone makes him invincible, a belief he ferments to further inspire his men. I stated before that much would be expected of you; now you see why. To that end, we should proceed with the Joining ritual immediately."

"Is this some sort of initiation rite?" asked Alim, genuinely curious.

"Of a sort, it is also your cure. Each Grey Warden must go through the Joining in order to become a full member of our Order. For the moment, I cannot tell you more. Suffice it to say that we do what is necessary."

Alim frowned as he heard that most weighty of phrases. Duncan had explained a great deal about the Wardens and the darkspawn on the journey, but the Joining had never come up. Why would he have to hide it? "Very well then. What do you need me to do?"

In response, Duncan tossed him a pouch of coins. "Feel free to explore the King's Camp as you wish, all I ask is that you do not leave it for the time being. There is another Grey Warden in the camp by the name of Alistair; once you've prepared yourself as you see fit, find him and inform him that it's time to summon the other recruits, a knight named Jory and an archer named Deveth.

"Once that is done, the next step of your initiation begins."

"Understood, Duncan, and thank you."

"Do not thank me just yet. There are many trials left to come," the older man intoned, bowing to the recruit before he turned and walked away.


End file.
